The Daily - The Deserter: Parts 4 and 5

Episode Date: September 29, 2024

In “The Deserter,” Sarah A. Topol reports the story of Ivan, a captain in the Russian Army who fought in Ukraine and then ultimately fled the war and his country with his wife, Anna. Topol spoke to 18 deserters while reporting in eight countries across four continents over the last year and a half; their experiences helped paint a vivid picture of the Russian war operation and its corruption, chaos and brutality.Narrated by Liev Schreiber.“The Deserter” is a five-part special series in collaboration with The New York Times Magazine.All five parts of this audio feature can be found here or by searching for “The Deserter” on the NYT Audio app or wherever you get your podcasts.The text version of the story can be found here. 

Part Four The Long Escape The Russian evacuation vehicle crashed through the wreckage of the forest, passing the upturned, splintered poplar trees and cratered roads. The man riding on top, wherever they could find space to cling, could barely hang on, moaning. Ivan knew he needed a plan, urgently. Otherwise they would send him back into battle right away. Whether it had been riding itself through his mind all along, or whether he thought of it on the spot, he would never know. But the answer was self-evident.

He needed to insist on surgery for his back. Years earlier, Ivan was holding Sasha in his arms when he fell down hard. Pain shot up his leg and back. It was a herniated disc. Ivan began trying to remember how Roman limped when he came back from the SVO, so he could replicate it. He decided that his gait should be more laborious. He needed to really wince when he put weight on his foot.

When the vehicle pulled up to a field hospital, it was a broken building with no window panes, just polyethylene flapping over the frames. There were medics writing down what kind of injury each man had. Ivan observed that most of the assembled could rip open their uniforms and show some kind of blood. He needed to think. He let everyone pass him.

What have you got, the medic asked him. My back. What, you got hit in the back? Wounded? No, my back's jammed. Hernia. The guy eyed him. All right, I'll put you on the other list.

At the entrance, the men unclipped their belts, unlaced their boots, and handed in their armor. The injured were wandering around in their socks on tiles streaked with blood and grime. The nurses couldn't keep up with the mopping. Ivan saw one of his subordinates, Space, talking on a cell phone. He thought he had bagged everyone's phone and left them with line before the operation. Why do you have your phone, Ivan demanded?

Well shit, Commander, Space said, I had more than one. First of all, you're an asshole. You didn't follow orders, Ivan told him. And secondly, give me the phone now, I need to call my wife. Ivan dialed Anna. Everything is fine, he told her. I'm alive, we're back from there. Anna was sobbing so hard she couldn't speak.

When Ivan got off the call, he went inside. It seemed as if the doctors there were churning everyone they could through an x-ray machine. They told Ivan they would x-ray his back too. My problem doesn't show up on X-rays, Ivan insisted. I need an MRI. No one listened. The doctors at the field hospitals were overworked, underprepared, or underqualified.

Either way, they had a reputation for making mistakes. Bare-blood, Ivan's deputy who lost part of a finger in the battle, wasn't even X-rayed properly so they didn't spot shrapnel in his wound, which would get infected and fester. Months later, he would need to have two additional phalanges removed. As the men waited, someone brought them breakfast. The plate was plain, watery potatoes with meat and onions, but Ivan had never tasted anything so good. It was almost sweet, melting in his mouth. There was tea in regular cardboard cups. The firmness of the cardboard felt like a luxury. A galette, which was probably not

even a galette, that they dunked in the tea seemed so sweet, too. An hour ago he was under fire and now he was sitting barefoot on a bench eating delicious food. He couldn't stop marveling at the contrast. He was sure in that moment that he would remember this meal for the rest of his life. Ivan limped all the way to the sleeping quarters. He washed his clothes. There was a shower. The two minutes under the water felt like a dream. He hadn't showered in more than a month.

He lay down on a clean cot. It felt so soft that these realities existed simultaneously, was bewildering. A place where there is always something to eat, which people tried to clean with running water, and yet at the same time, in the distance you can still hear the explosions, he thought, and promptly fell asleep. The next morning Ivan was told he would be pushed onward to a hospital in Donetsk for further examination. The men loaded up into a truck.

Donetsk was where the military sorted the injured, the fulcrum of the reverse march from Russia's strategy of throwing its men relentlessly at the front. Some were operated on there, others were flown to Moscow or driven to Rostov-on-Don. As they waited for intake and triage, Ivan relished the line. The same worthless paperwork and thumb-twiddling that had always irritated him became an asset. He had a lot to think about. He needed to get back to Russian soil. He wasn't sure what he would do once he got there, but he knew it would give him the time

to figure it out. Donetsk was not safe enough. If you were unlucky, it was still possible to be redeployed to the front line in a few hours. The doctor who initially examined Ivan referred him to a neurologist. When Ivan said he needed a neurosurgeon, he was told there were none. The neurologist began to probe his leg, raising and lowering it, telling Ivan to tell him when the pain started.

Ivan yelped, there, there, he feigned. You'll be fine, the doctor told him, it will pass. Ivan tried to show the doctor his old MRI scan on his phone, but the doctor refused to look at anything not printed on paper. Ivan was to fill the prescription and return to his unit. This cannot be the end of this story. He raced to print out his old MRI scan. He went back to the original doctor.

The neurologist wouldn't even look at the results of my MRI, Ivan said. I know I need surgery, but he tells me to take a pill. I need a neurosurgeon. Can you send me to Moscow, to St. Petersburg? The doctor looked at Ivan's printout and agreed to refer him to a different neurologist. Ivan could not afford another setback. As he waited for transport, he called his mother. She had an acquaintance who was a military neurosurgeon and

specifically dealt with backs. Give me her phone number, he said. I need to talk to her right away. Ivan's mother didn't ask questions, but he wouldn't have told her anything anyway. Ivan couldn't have her thinking he was a traitor. He would break her heart or worse. Ivan's mother was a patriot. She cared more about appearances than about Ivan's realities.

This did not hurt Ivan's feelings because he did not expect it to be another way. When Ivan reached his mother's friend, he explained that the situation in Donetsk was bad. My back really hurts, he told her. I'm worried that since I don't have as much pain now, they will send me back. But as soon as I put on my body armor, immediately everything will get worse. When you're lying down, if you can lift your leg above 30 degrees, you're probably not as acute of a case, she explained to him.

Ivan thanked her and got off the phone. He had definitely raised his leg further than 30 degrees at the neurologist. He should have started yelping much earlier. He cursed himself for not preparing. Each mistake could cost him his life. Ivan knew he had to be personable. He chatted up the next neurologist, asked him about the situation in Donetsk. War had been destroying the city since 2014, but Ivan noticed that people were eerily unfazed.

Parents still walked the streets with their children who played outside in playgrounds. Water was intermittent. The hospital stockpiled it in buckets. I have no pencils, no paper, the doctor complained. We buy everything at our own expense. Ivan nodded and groaned along at all the right places. The doctor examined him and said he could send him on to a civilian hospital to see a neurosurgeon there and do another MRI, but he would have to pay for it out of pocket.

No question about it, Ivan said. I'll pay whatever I need to pay. I out of pocket. No question about it, Ivan said. I'll pay whatever I need to pay. I'll go everywhere I need to go. He left the appointment and immediately went to the store. He bought some stationary and some cognac and returned. Please, so everything is normal, Ivan said as he handed the items to the doctor. I just wish you'd keep me here a little longer.

The doctor understood. Ivan got on the MRI waiting list. It would be at least ten days. He needed to pinpoint exactly what symptoms he needed to qualify for surgery. Only surgery would guarantee him a ticket to Russia. Ivan called Roman and asked how he was faring. He said he was much better after rehabilitation. The pain had been so intense that Roman didn't just limp, he dragged his leg. Ivan realized he needed to correct his gait.

Rather than wincing with each step, he would start pulling his leg behind him. Ivan decided to start saying that before the war, a doctor at home had told him that he needed surgery, to make everyone believe that a higher authority than Ivan had cleared it. As an officer, he figured he could insist on doing the procedure in a military hospital in Moscow or St. Petersburg, where the surgeons were competent enough that the operation most likely wouldn't harm him, even if he didn't actually need it. And going through with it would grant him six months of leave for rehabilitation. Maybe the war would be over by then. When the civilian neurosurgeon finally saw him, Ivan went through his whole routine. Yeah, this is a problem, the civilian doctor told Ivan.

You can either do the surgery at this hospital for a fee, or in Russia with your military insurance. No, no, no, Ivan said. I would like to be in the military structure." He watched as the doctor wrote his recommendations, the words that would get Ivan back to safety, surgical intervention. He had no idea if the doctor had bought the ruse or if he was just playing along. Either way, the man was saving his life. In the first Russian city Ivan reached, Rostov-on-Don, he marveled at the silence. There was no shelling or sounds of war anywhere.

Ivan had continued to think about his act as he traveled. He decided to add a cane to his performance. He thought it would distinguish him from the crowd when he returned to the base, signifying that his injury was serious rather than some kind of sprain. Not far from the train station, he found a shop selling canes. It was November, it would be winter soon. Ivan was playing the long game. He decided to buy the nicest cane.

It was solid black with a retractable spike for the ice. He wandered the back streets practicing how to use it with his left hand, while dragging his leg behind him. He went to the post office and put his cane on the table to fill out some paperwork, but when Ivan turned around, it was gone. He was in uniform, so the person who stole it had to know it was a wounded war veteran's cane. Welcome home.

Ivan had joined the tens of thousands of men making their way through the Russian military's medical system. Loaded onto evacuation trains, transferred and re-transferred into hospitals for treatment and rehabilitation, eventually ending up back at their bases. As he moved through Russia, Ivan perfected his limp and his grimaces. Watching the other injured men around him, he realized that surgery might not be the solution he originally believed it to be. That eventually he would be rehabilitated and sent back to the front line

almost as soon as the bandages came off. When he finally got back to his base, he went straight to the colonel's office without showering or shaving. He wanted to look as rough as he could. "'I have to have back surgery,' he explained, showing everyone his paperwork. I got an injection to block the pain. It's enough for a while, but I have to have surgery. Ah, you have the same story as Roman, they replied at the office at HR at the medical clinic,

offering him a chair. It was easier to sell his act because they had already heard it. Why would they think to doubt its veracity? Instead, they sped up his paperwork. An injured captain was a war hero. He was on the next flight to Anna and Sasha. Anna met him at the airport. She could scarcely believe that he was real, that he was whole, that he was with her again. They took the weekend to celebrate,

but they couldn't allow themselves any further opportunity to relax. They knew they were on borrowed time. I'm never going back there again, Ivan told Anna. Never, under no circumstances will I go back to war. I'd rather die. Russians have two passports, international and domestic. When Anna wrote to Adite Lesum on Telegram, she explained that Ivan's foreign passport was locked in a safe at the Human Resources Office at the base.

The person typing on the other end explained that because Ivan did not have his international passport, his only opportunity to leave Russia would be to use his domestic passport to go to another country in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Russia's answer to NATO, which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Once Ivan arrived in a CSTO country, he would have to remain there. He would not be in Russia, but he would not be safe either. Ivan and Anna had followed the case of Mikhail Zhilin, a Federal Guard Service Officer who sent his wife and child to Kazakhstan and later crossed the border illegally because FGS officers are forbidden to leave Russia.

Moscow put Zhilin on an international wanted list, and the Kazakh authorities arrested him despite his request for asylum. In December 2022, they deported him to Russia despite the public pleas of his wife and efforts from NGOs. Zhilan was subsequently sentenced to six and a half years in prison for desertion and illegal border crossing. Anna decided that the CSTO was not an option. They needed to get as far away from Russia as they could, to a country that would not extradite Ivan once he was declared AWOL or a deserter.

He agreed in principle, but had no idea how to do it. How can I run without a passport, Ivan asked her. Anna was undeterred. Ivan spent his vacation focused on the practicalities. He needed to find the hospital in Moscow with the longest waiting list. They worked together and separately. Anna went back and forth across telegram channels, websites and message boards.

She decided on the country they should go to. She told Ivan that she would start studying cosmetology. She needed a profession that wouldn't require her to speak the local language. She would leave first with Sasha. That part would be easier. Civilians, even the wives of officers, were free to travel. Ivan would find a way to join them. Maybe he would have to run through the forest. Or maybe, if he thought hard enough, he could find a legal way to quit. He just needed more time.

Anna registered for courses and an apprenticeship at a salon. She started organizing paperwork, a passport for Sasha. She felt she was at the edge of a chasm, stepping into the unknown with no idea if they would make it or not. They spent the New Year's holiday together. They planned and planned. It would be the last time they saw each other until they met again in their final destination. Anna sat Ivan down. She had been thinking about it. If you don't make it to us, it's okay. Just stay alive, she told him. I'll know you're alive somewhere, and that's the most important. I'll do anything to get to you, he told her. I'll arrange for some guy to load me into a cargo container ship.

I'll get to you somehow. When Ivan returned to the base, he went back to work as he waited to get on the surgery list. He reported to all the formations, the meetings, the paper pushing. But now, with the respect of a captain injured in war. He kept the curtains closed in their apartment so he could move around without the cane. Otherwise, it would be easy to spot him from the main street downstairs. From that bench at the skate park where he used to watch Anna in their kitchen, it could jeopardize the whole thing.

Every night he came home and ate his dinner while streaming some TV show on his computer. Then he put everything aside and sat at the kitchen table in silence. Maybe he could get himself declared insane and be discharged. He had heard about a guy at his base who told the base psychologist that he had fallen asleep on duty. Dreamed of killing himself and woke up with a gun in his mouth, but he didn't remember putting there.

Rumor was that the guy would be dismissed for being mentally unfit for service. Perhaps Ivan could get a fake mental health exemption certificate. Sometimes when he had an idea like trying to be declared mentally unfit, he messaged his Idite Lessem coordinator. Within the group, Ivan's case had been passed to Anton Gorbachevich, who specialized in complicated situations. Though the team was public, Ivan knew little about the man he was corresponding with directly, been passed to Anton Gorbachevich, who specialized in complicated situations. Though the team was public, Ivan knew little about the man he was corresponding with directly,

but he liked Anton's manner. He was calm, collected, and responsive. He inspired trust, even though Ivan did not know his last name. For over a decade, Anton had been in opposition politics in St. Petersburg. He was soft-spoken and good with people. Anton himself had fled Russia within days after the mobilization was announced. He had taken a circuitous route to the land crossing with Georgia and had been hunted, threatened and extorted by the police at checkpoint after checkpoint.

So he understood the urgency and anxiety of Ivan's situation better than many. When Anton told Ivan that mental unfitness didn't disqualify anyone from serving anymore because of the mobilization, Ivan returned to thinking. One night it occurred to him. All he needed was his passport. So what if he got a fake and somehow swapped it with his real one? Hello, I got an idea for a passport, he wrote to Anton. I can come to HR physically in the office and take it.

The issue was only duplication. I've heard there are people on the dark net who can help. Yes, that's a good idea, Anton replied. He pointed Ivan toward Rutor, a Russian site on the dark web. People could make all kinds of passports. Ten-year biometric passports with fingerprints, newer five-year passports with chips. A customer could send a photo of himself, and the seller would find a person who looked similar from the database of real, valid passports and change the surname, the first name, the

patronymic, at a cost of up to $10,000. Ivan's passport was issued seven years earlier. To create a good replica, he needed to redo the photograph. In his original picture, he had bangs, so he sat down with Photoshop and added bangs, hair by hair. He played with his haircut, making it boxier. He smoothed out his complexion. He moved his ears little by little.

He took off some pounds and gave himself a more pronounced jawline. He pulled sideburns from stock images, added them and smoothed them out. It took him a few hours until he was happy with the result. Ivan sent the photo to the seller who showed Ivan what the final page would look like. Ivan would pay 60,000 rubles, $650, and then wait about a month.

He had submitted the paperwork for surgery, but nothing had moved. Ivan began preparing anyway so he could leave as quickly as possible when the fake passport arrived. He needed to sell their things. He started new telegram accounts to list items so they couldn't be traced to him. Within a few weeks, he was living in an empty apartment. He slept on an old mattress on the floor. When the passport arrived, Ivan noticed that it was missing the watermark and the hologram. The seller had claimed that it would be an identical replica. Ivan kicked himself for

not discussing every single detail, but decided he wouldn't complain. Probably no one would examine the passport that thoroughly. His real problem was how to swap it without getting caught. Ivan knew the Human Resources Office from years of worthless paperwork and reports. The HR manager sat at a desk on the right side of the room. Next to him was a six-foot-high metal safe with three drawers. They were unlocked with a key. The passports were kept in folders inside the drawers.

Each passport had a paper bookmark in it with various biographical details. Ivan thought about returning after hours, waiting for the duty officer to go to the bathroom and picking the lock, but that seemed too risky. He would have to find a way to take the passport under the pretense of borrowing it, but he didn't think they would let him just walk off with the document. Even asking would raise too much suspicion. What could I need it for that I couldn't do with it inside the room, he asked himself. Maybe, he reasoned, he would say he needed to write something down

for his wife's job application and make the switch while the duty officer and anyone else were present. To complicate matters Ivan could use only one arm. The other would be holding the cane as part of his act, so he had to walk in with his cane in his left hand, take the passport with his free right hand, and somehow swap it for the fake. He would also need to remove the bookmark from the original and place it into the duplicate before returning it. How could he do all that with just one hand? The HR manager's desk faced the room. Ivan would have to find a way to reach into his pocket while holding both the cane

and the passport. No, that wouldn't work. He would need to find a way to sit down, put down his cane so he could have two free hands and then reach into his pocket. But that motion could be seen from the side or the back. He decided he had to avoid unnecessary movements. He would have to sit down, put his cane down, and start taking down the passport details while making the swap.

Ivan thought maybe he could stick his passport up his sleeve. At home, he put on his uniform and practiced. The passport was bulky, bigger than his wrist. Someone could notice. Ivan sat down at the kitchen table to think. He attended meetings with a moleskin-type notebook. Maybe he could take the notebook as if he were coming from some mindless meeting. He carried it in his right hand. What if I take it, open it, and slip the passport inside?

When he tried it, he realized that the notebook bulged a bit. You could see something smaller sandwiched inside the larger book easily. Just imagine if it slipped out and there were two identical passports on the ground. He sat down again to think. What if I cut a hole in the notebook and put it in there? Ivan took out a knife and carved a hole in the center of the notebook's pages. He left blank pages at the back, so if anyone asked him to write something down, it would still be usable. He practiced how he would do it.

He would walk into the office. To his right, the HR manager would be seated facing the room. Privet, can I have my passport, please? I need to write something down for my wife. I'll copy it down right here, Ivan rehearsed. The guy would turn, open the safe, and hand Ivan the passport. Ivan would take the passport with his right hand, the same one holding the notebook, and walk over to a table he knew was on the other side of the room.

If it was empty, he would sit down. If it was occupied, he would say, buddy, can I sit down? I'll write it down quickly. He was the one with a cane, after all. Of course you can, comrade captain, he imagined the reply. He was an officer, injured in war. Ivan would sit down and lean his cane against the table. Keeping his original passport in his right hand, he would open the notebook with his

left. His fingers flipping the cover to reveal the duplicate passport in the hole. Ivan would pull out the duplicate with his left hand and insert the original passport with his right. Once it was in, he would pull the bookmark out of the passport and close the notebook. He would reopen the notebook from the back to an empty page and start to copy the details from the duplicate. As he wrote, he would casually lean back in his chair and ask the guy how the morning

formation went that day, so he would see that Ivan was relaxed. When he was done, Ivan would close the notebook from the back and pick it up tightly by the binding in one hand with the duplicate passport on top. He would return it to the duty officer the same way he had taken it and walk out leaning on his cane. He spent a night and a day at home practicing the movements. He timed it until he could do it fast, almost with his eyes closed. He wanted it to be quick, muscle memory, so if he were nervous, he wouldn't stumble or shake.

The trick wasn't just in the double-handed swap, but in moving the pages and cover backward and forward with his fingers simultaneously, like a difficult piano piece. Once he mastered the movements, Ivan spent a week casing the HR office, determining when it was the least busy. He learned that the usual senior human resources officer had left for the SVO, and that in his place was a green young lieutenant whom Ivan outranked. Perfect. Ivan waited for the evening, when he had noticed that there typically were fewer people in the office. When he walked in, the young officer was alone. Once Ivan explained what he needed, the officer handed him the passport.

Ivan took the original and sat down. His hands were steady, left fingers flicking open the notebook, pulling out the duplicate, while his right hand dropped in the original and pulled the bookmark out seamlessly. He slid the bookmark into the duplicate. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds, but it felt endless. The passports were swapped.

Ivan opened a fresh page and began to write numbers. How did the formation go? He asked, leaning back in the chair, turning to the officer. Well, damn, there was some bullshit there, the kid replied. Yeah, like always, Ivan answered, relaxed, slowly writing. He stood up, took his cane, walked back to the desk, and handed over the passport. The guy didn't even look at it, just put it back in the folder.

Ivan walked out of the room and back to his car, holding the notebook tightly in his hand. He got in and settled behind the wheel before allowing himself to peep inside. He saw the hologram. It was his original passport. His insides melted. He had really done it.

He called Anna. The bird is in the cage, he whispered. The bird is in the cage. Part 5. Stalked by Shadows. Though Ivan had his passport, he was still stuck. He needed a way to get off the base without arousing suspicion, but he had taken all his vacation time already. He didn't think he could wait much longer.

It was summer, and since the start of the invasion, Russia had taken heavy casualties on multiple fronts. A hundred and twenty thousand had been killed, and as many as a hundred and eighty thousand injured, according to U.S. officials. Roughly fifteen thousand Soviet troops were killed in the decade-long war in Afghanistan. After the Wagner coup in June, when Evgeny Progozhin marched his private army on the Kremlin and openly challenged the competency of Putin's military direction, there was a fear of the private contractors disbanding. The enlistment campaign had driven total spending on sign-up bonuses and salaries

to a colossal level. It did not seem sustainable for the state. Rumors about another round of mobilization were constant. Ivan feared that there could be an order barring all men, or service members in particular, from leaving the country. He needed to move fast. When Ivan convinced the doctor to recommend surgery, it was in the hope that recovery would give him six months away from the front. But now he realized that it could be his ticket out of the country entirely.

He'd heard that Roman, whose legs failed at the S.V.O., had received permission to leave the base to have his surgery done privately. Ivan thought about it. Why can't I do the same? He went straight to the newest base commander. Comrade Major, he said, I've been walking with the cane for six months now. So far, no one has sent the documents. They say there are no places.

Let me go and get the surgery on my own dime. There's a good clinic and they do surgeries there like the one I need. Okay, the commander replied. Can I have ten days vacation? Yes, permitted. In five minutes Ivan wrote the report and took it back. The commander, one of those same superiors who sat safe and pretty at the base as they forced Ivan against his will to the front line while tormenting him for not being a

patriot, added his signature. My friend, you've signed your own sentence now." Immediately Ivan booked a flight to Moscow. He printed the papers he needed, the things he didn't want found, like his international passport. He slipped into a compartment in his backpack that usually contained a retractable rain covering, which he had gingerly cut out of the lining. The border dance had to be executed carefully.

Anton had repeatedly cautioned that under no circumstances should Ivan use his international passport, or even admit to having one, at the border between Russia and Belarus or at the Minsk airport, as it could provoke additional checks. The most important crossing would be the exit from Minsk. The magazine is withholding certain details of the route at the request of Edith Alesum. Belarus's borders were where the security systems were the most synchronized with Russia's and where people had been detained. But at the next airport in the next country he would be able to use his foreign passport

to board a flight to Istanbul. From Istanbul he would fly on to his final destination. He did not have any of his flights booked in advance, so as not to light up the web. He would book each leg as he approached it. If everything went according to plan, he would arrive on Anna's birthday. Once Ivan got to Moscow, his closest childhood friend helped him exchange rubles for American dollars. He took five thousand dollars in cash and put the rest of his money in bitcoin. His friend had bought him a new phone but hadn't opened it. Ivan took his old phone

to another friend's house and left it there. They bought a new unregistered SIM card in the subway, took the train to another part of Moscow and turned the phone on, ensuring that the new one and the old one had never been next to each other. Ivan opened a new Telegram account and subscribed to some pro-Russia channels to show how much he loved Putin. They went to buy a train ticket. While they waited, Ivan noticed the police talking to some of the people in line. Brother, calm down, his friend told him.

He looked nervous as hell. Ivan realized his hands were trembling. Each step matters. He went to the bathroom. He forced himself to breathe. When he returned, the police were gone. He bought the ticket in cash and boarded. It was a standard plot's cart, the cheapest long-distance overnight option, with an open

carriage and rows of bunks. After all the stress and sleepless nights, Ivan fell asleep immediately. He woke up to daylight and checked his phone. It was roaming. They had crossed into Belarus. Another step down. His bunkmate came down from the top bed and they chatted over tea. She told Ivan she was a civil servant. What about you? she asked. She told Ivan she was a civil servant. What about you, she asked. I'm a web designer, Ivan said. I'm going on vacation with coworkers.

Just saying the words aloud thrilled him. He wasn't just a web designer, but a web designer who traveled, not a guy who posed for photo reports or killed people in war. How long had he lurked on the precipice of that life? Ivan knew what happened when someone deserted. At every evening meeting, the base's duty officer reported on the last 24 hours, showing photo reports on the projector, including a slide that listed everyone who missed roll call that morning. Other slides listed those who were on rotation somewhere, those at the

S.V.O., those with the dispensation to receive medical treatment, those who were on trips to take two hundreds from Rostov-on-Don and deliver the corpses to family members, and then those who were unaccounted for. He knew that once his leave ended, his name would flash on the final slide. "'Did you call his parents?' the Colonel would demand. "'Did you call his parents?' the Colonel would demand. "'Did you call his wife? What does the wife say? Personnel department.

What about the personnel file? Where do his parents live? Did you send a request to send someone to their address? Did they go there?' "'Yes, they went to the address. What did they report?' "'They said the parents are out of the loop. They don't know where he is.

He's not at the address.'" Ivan had seen the scenario repeatedly. They all knew about the guy who had been hiding in Syria for months, but like so much else in the Russian services, people tried not to talk about it. Another set of guys had been AWOL and Donetsk somewhere for half a year. Every week their commander would call them and ask where they were. Yeah, yeah, I'll be right there, they would answer, but never appear. These were all unofficial deserters, not that the Russian authorities released any formal figures.

No commanding officer wanted to officially declare a subordinate AWOL. He didn't want to get knocked by his superior because he had lost so many men. So everyone was trying to solve the situation on their own to avoid officially entering the soldier's name into the system. A commander may even have already reported the guy to his superior, but that superior did not want to have problems with his own superior, and so the two were in cahoots not to open a criminal case. Under Russian law, a deserter must have the intent to desert. So a man could be away from base for a long time and be charged with simply being AWOL, which carried a significantly shorter sentence than desertion.

And so even under mobilization, long after the two days beyond which he could be declared AWOL had passed, or the eight more that carried a prison term of up to five years, or even the twenty more after that that increased the punishment to seven years, or even more than a month for a sentence of up to ten years, there was still no case at the military prosecutor's office. A deserter might never be charged with desertion at all, and could continue receiving his full salary for months. Because Ivan was a captain, he assumed that the base's FSB officer would be working on

his case. Ivan knew the guy from school. How many times did we go to each other's houses with our wives and children? He would call around to ask Ivan's subordinates how they would characterize him, if he had any suspicious contacts, if he had any contacts in Ukraine, what his call sign was, whether he had told anyone of his plans to desert, whether he had expressed any opinions about the army or politics. Both before deployment and after his return Ivan had himself been involved in the hunt for missing soldiers. One commander would call another and ask him to check the registered house of someone from

their unit who had gone AWOL. The commander would send his subordinates, sometimes it was the military police, but sometimes it was just normal soldiers, borrowed from another unit. Everyone knew the routine. They could try a few times at different times of the day, morning, evening, night. They would bang on the door and if no one answered they would stand outside the house or sit in their car and wait for the lights to come on. Then they would report back what they saw. There were instances when the soldiers simply didn't show up to the S.V.O. transport. The

base's military police or grunts from the base under other commanders would be dispatched to his apartment. They would see the man inside, but they had no right to break into the house. The soldier did not answer his phone. but there were methods to flush him out. They could cut his electricity at the panel in the stairwell. Let's say the guy is sitting inside playing on the computer or something. He is surprised when the power fails and goes to check. He walks out into the entryway and the men grab him. The hallway is in his apartment, and there the military has the right to use a certain

amount of physical force. They take him, put him in the car, and bring him to the base commander. The base commander takes over. The guy ends up at the S.V.O. Ivan didn't spend time thinking about the morality of trying to flee despite sending other people to the front line. This was the automatic reflex of a well-developed muscle of moral ambiguity. That's not my area of expertise.

I don't care why the person didn't show up for the service. The mere fact of not reporting for duty is a violation. I'm just doing my job. When Ivan got to the Minsk airport he hung back, watching. This was the most crucial hurdle on the first international airport border he had ever been to. Everyone passed through the two white doors that led to the security screening. Beyond that was passport control.

He called Anna. I'm going. That's it, he told her. I'll call you later. Once through security, he saw white cubicles with glass windows. Women sat looking through passports. He stayed back again to watch. He spotted a woman who looked as though she was in her forties, with a brown bob and a

pleasant face. Her line was moving quickly, and she seemed to be barely flipping through the pages. As he approached her he breathed deeply. He told himself to be calm. Smile. Hello, he said. deeply. He told himself to be calm, smile. Hello, he said. Please remove your hat.

Ivan took off his hat, smiling. He passed her his domestic passport. Why domestic, she asked. Where's your foreign passport? You can fly to- With a domestic one. I don't know about that, she told him. I'm going to check.

She got up and left him standing there. Ivan tried to stay calm. Around him, people passed without any incident. Everyone click, click into the computer and out. What is this absurdity? Why is she taking so long? You can use a domestic one, she said when she returned. But do you have a foreign passport?

No, I don't have a foreign passport, of course not, domestic only. Only a domestic one. You don't have a foreign one by any chance. Why are you suddenly asking that question so many times? Ivan wanted to scream. He started sweating. No, he replied. It's just faster to register a foreign passport.

No, I don't have one. She started to type in his information, but then began hitting the same button over and over again. My computer is freezing, she announced. Fuck, she is probably running me through the database, which is causing the computer to freeze. It will say something like, do not let him out, he is a service member, he is forbidden to leave, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Ivan began to shake. He focused all his energy on his hands and fingers, willing them to stay still. He wiggled his toes up and down, up and down, so no one would see him fidgeting. They're scanning a database right now, that's it. They're just gonna arrest me now. He waited, sweating, toes wiggling, wiggling. What's going on, the woman asked a co-worker. Yeah, it's frozen for me too, her neighbor said.

It's the Russian passports. Ivan could not believe it. Were they going to let him pass, take him to another room? His shirt was soaked. The woman kept hitting her keyboard. She reset something, took Ivan's photo a second time, and ran him through again. Ivan waited. And then she looked up at him from her computer and announced that he was free to pass.

He was so dazed that he couldn't figure out how the door worked. Finally he was out and in the transit zone. He ran to the bathroom and called Anna. I'm shaking, he told her, but I got through, I got through, that's it. You can exhale now. Anna didn't believe it. Since Ivan left the base, she had been in a state of constant dread. She didn't sleep.

She forced herself to breathe, to watch Sasha. She thought Ivan could be stopped at any moment. When he emerged from the bathroom, he chose a chair by his gate and sat down. Damn, it's about time. I'd been through the most important part, now a little more. It was only on the plane, buckled into the sea, taking off, that Ivan felt he could exhale. He was, in his mind, free. The rest of the steps were a formality. Everything mentally complicated was done. The rest was physical.

Just fly, land, fly, land, fly, land. At the next airport Ivan watched the sunrise. He nearly lost most of his money buying a fake plane ticket from a charlatan. He used cash at an airport office to buy a multi-leg ticket all the way through to his final destination, but when he looked at it closely he saw that only the flight to Turkey was confirmed.

The rest were just reservations. Some opportunists thought Ivan was a sucker who wouldn't notice until he was already on a layover. Ivan raised hell and threatened to call the police until someone found the guy, who slinked around to offer what Ivan was sure was a feigned apology, claiming that he didn't realize he hadn't really made the booking. Anna was horrified. If Ivan hadn't been able to get the money back, they would have had nothing left to spend on plane tickets. But also, was he insane? Did he want to involve the police and flash his ID all over the CSTO? The flight to Istanbul was beautiful. Clouds and more clouds. Ivan filmed it all. As the plane descended, he could see green water rippling around lush

islands. But then the pilot jerked them up violently and climbed back into the clouds. I can't believe this is happening. A moron at Minsk passport control, a swindler at the next airport, a plane mishap in Turkey. Just my luck. They circled for a while and then landed on their second try. Ivan waited around all day in the enormous Istanbul airport, worried that his gate would suddenly change and he would have to run across five concourses and end up missing his next flight. When he eventually boarded, he fell asleep almost immediately. Exiting customs at his final destination, Ivan couldn't really believe it.

Finally. It's finally happening. It's happening. It really worked. You were running from death. Did you really succeed? He walked out into the arrivals hall. Anna and Sasha were waiting with a sign. Welcome, it said in the language of their new country. In the video a friend took, Anna looked drunk, her features melting. She was bawling, her frame collapsing in on herself. Ivan enveloped her and whispered into her ear, it's okay, it's okay, I'm here.

I arrived, calm down, it's okay, it's okay here. Anna couldn't stop crying. She knew there was a whole road ahead of them that still needed to be traversed. Status papers, safety, a new life. But Ivan was there. He was in front of her. He stroked her hair. Anna had tasked herself with establishing their new lives in anticipation of Ivan's escape. As soon as she arrived, she set about learning the language, figuring out how to buy groceries, making friends, finding a daycare for Sasha. If each step Ivan took mattered, each counter-step Anna took mattered just as much. The most important thing was to

legalize their existence. She needed to find the right lawyer to make sure they could receive protected status. There were a lot of swindlers peddling assistance to the waves of desperate Russians who were fleeing their country. Anna decided that they didn't just need refugee status, they needed citizenship. An ironclad guarantee that they would never be sent back to Russian soil, or have to set foot in the Russian embassy for any reason ever again. But she couldn't just ask random Russians she met for help. Besides, their asylum claim was more complicated than most. Ivan was not a politically persecuted activist or someone who had fled a draft notice. He had been involved in actual fighting.

No matter how long other cases took, theirs would probably take longer. Deserters were not in touch with one another either. Edite Lessem helped soldiers escape Russia, but it was up to the individual to take it from there. They were almost entirely on their own. She spent weeks trying to understand the most mundane nuances of the logistics of life in this new place. Even renting an apartment was more difficult than she imagined.

When she first arrived she lucked out with a less than attentive landlord, but now they needed a bigger place, and many listings required renters to have a local guarantor. Anna saw the man's posts while scrolling telegram group chats for newly arrived Russians as she was researching rental law. He was so nice, joking and offering advice to everyone about everything. His thoughtful replies drew tons of likes and grateful comments. She wrote him a direct message with a question about the guarantor system. Right away the man offered to call her to explain the details.

He laid everything out systematically, explained things she had spent hours puzzling over. He was buoyant, made so many jokes, and suggested they grab a coffee and talk some more. Anna took Sasha. The man brought his pregnant wife. He made more jokes. They chatted and chatted about the weirdness of this new life in exile. He asked her about Sasha's daycare. Is it a good one?

I'm going to need one soon, he said, nudging his wife and laughing. Anna told him everything she knew about the education system. She was so happy to be useful, to share something back, after he had spent so long on the phone explaining the property system to her. After an hour and a half he took her phone and started making calls to real estate agents for her. I speak the language, he said. Don't worry about it, it's easy for me. He touched her arm, just a small gesture, but

it meant so much. Well, what's your deal? he asked, when he was done making the calls. I know it's hard for you here. Let me help you somehow. It doesn't cost me anything. I mean, really, people who know me around here, they all say you're a wizard. Here comes the wizard, you know? Anna thought they were still bantering. Don't you know there's no such thing as wizards in real life?' she asked. "'You've just never met one in your life,' he told her seriously. "'But anything is possible here.'"

The stress of the last year sat in her bones. It curled inside the angry scars on her wrists. She looked at him in wonder, are there really people in the world who just help, without asking for anything in return? She felt for the first time in so long that maybe she could have some relief. Maybe he could find a way for them to get their paperwork done faster. What's your status here, he asked. How are you going to get legalized?

I don't know, she told him. I thought about going to school to get a student visa, maybe university, but I don't have the language. Look, that's a long time, four years of school, he told her. Yeah, and we need to earn money to survive too. Damn, why is it so complicated, he asked her, commiserating. Who's your husband? My husband is complicated.

Why is it so hard, he asked, but she stayed quiet. Did you get caught in the vortex or something with the war? Yes. And war in general is bullshit. Fuck Putin, I've had so many friends end up there. I helped them to escape the war. She looked at him. Our situation is so fucked, she whispered.

Shit, I know what you mean, I understand. Hey, is there anything I can do to help? I've already helped my guys get out of there. Can I help you translate documents and paperwork? I speak the language well. She promised to email him everything when she got home. What about your husband, though, he asked again. Is he military?

Anna grew up amid Russia's Soviet hangover and came of age in Putin's Russia. Generations of dictatorship had given way to renewed autocracy. She knew you didn't talk to strangers. Instead, she burst into tears. My girl, calm down, it's okay, I understand, he told her. That Putin is a bastard. She agreed. She started speaking generally about the war. I understand," he told her, "'that Putin is a bastard.'" She agreed.

She started speaking generally about the war, all the horrible things she felt about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "'Yeah, yeah, of course. But what's going on with you?' He asked kindly. Little by little, she felt herself unfurling, relaxing. The layers came off. She told him that her husband was military, that they fled the war,

that they barely made it here, that it was a miracle he had made it through Belarus, that he had almost been swindled of their savings trying to buy plane tickets. Really? Holy shit, my God, he exclaimed. Once she started, she kept talking. She told him a lot of things, not Ivan's name, but that he was an officer. All the trouble they had been through, all the trouble he was in. It tumbled out of her without warning.

She didn't even know how badly she had needed to talk to someone. Well, of course, treason against the motherland, he's looking at 20 to 25. The man wasn't joking around anymore. He was solemn, concerned. Okay, let's think about how we can help him, he started. Okay, so now he's got a criminal case pending against him. Let's say he gets new citizenship here, obtains some documents, and renounces Russian citizenship.

He tears it up, he doesn't fucking need it. He renounces his citizenship altogether. How? In all her research, Anna had never heard of this. Wait, I'll tell you everything. You and I are going to figure this out. It's possible. Yeah, it's complicated. Yeah, it's hard. But it's all being solved. He paused. Everything can be solved, only in a different way. And then he looked at her and smiled.

Gotcha. Anna didn't understand. Your husband is ours now. What do you mean? I'm here for people like your husband. I live and work here for guys like your husband. He took his cell phone and turned it to her, flashing his screen so quickly that she couldn't quite make it out. A black screen with a red cross.

Was that the GRU? I'm from this organization, so let's go. Call him. Bring him to me. couldn't quite make it out. A black screen with a red cross. Was that the GRU? I'm from this organization, so let's go. Call him. Bring him to me." She barely understood what was happening. She panicked. She stalled for time, trying to make sense of this. Who? She asked. Your husband. He doesn't have a lot of options. Either he comes to me nicely. I'm going to

supervise him here. He's going to do certain tasks for me. Or, do you know how it happens? What happens? People just disappear. Here was a man walking down the street. The wrong car drove by and the man was gone. Today, the man is there. Tomorrow, he is not." Anna squirmed in her chair. She looked at him and didn't speak. She picked up a knife from the table. You're going to take the knife and stab me in the neck like this, right? Chk-chk-chk, he taunted. I'd kill you right now, Anna replied. She called to Sasha, who was absorbed in the cake the man bought for them. Let's go, get ready, she said in her calmest voice. Slowly she started gathering their things.

Well, come on, call him. Don't waste time, the man said. I'm waiting. Anna looked at the man squarely. You don't know my husband, you bastard. What were you trying to scare me to death? Do you know how much death I've seen this year, you bastard? I will help every person who is running from this war. Did you hear me?

I'll help anyone, because there shouldn't be people like you in this world. It's because of you this war is happening, because of people like you." Anna was shaking, adrenaline mixed with rage, awash with fear. She threw money at the waiter, took her child by the hand, and started walking. The man followed her out. He grabbed her hand hard, not letting go.

"'Calm down, calm down. Let's smoke, calm down.' Anna pulled her hand away and steered Sasha toward a taxi. By the time I met Anna in person a few months later, her wrists were red and welted. She had been on the edge of happiness, but after the incident her fear had redoubled. She worried that they would be found, that this man would send someone for Ivan. The secret of who they were, what their life had been, and the families they had left behind, the shadows stalked her.

Worse was the guilt, that she had been the one to give Ivan up. She had taken the happy ending they worked so hard for and smashed it. At any minute he could be killed or hurt, and it was all her fault for opening up, for being herself, for trusting in fairy tales. She spent days weeping in bed. They wrote a detailed lesson about the incident. The group offered Anna a few consultations with a volunteer psychologist who told her not to panic.

The man was probably a grifter, one of the many Russians who played on the community's fear to make a quick buck. He would probably just have extorted them in return for his silence. But when Anna asked her new friends if they knew this guy, they told her they thought he really was affiliated with the Russian Embassy. He had been on the periphery of the diplomatic circle for years, operating in some gray area that no one understood. Ivan wasn't sure what to think.

He just knew Anna was terrified. They started calling the man Misha Lyosha. Two generic Russian names as a joke, so his spectre would loosen its power over them. Whether Misha Lyosha was an agent of the Russian military intelligence service or just a grifter was almost beside the point. They knew the Russian state could reach them anywhere, or it wanted them to think it could. Either way, the result was the same. They were silenced. After Aditya Lesum put me in touch with Ivan, we chatted on line until one day he apologized

and disappeared. Then, just as suddenly, a few weeks later he was back. He explained that he had wanted to tell his story, but the incident with Misha Lyosha happened. Anna grew scared and asked him to stop speaking to me. They moved apartments. They tried again to change their lives. We agreed that I would keep the specifics of their biography vague enough so as to protect their security. Anna was at war with herself. All she had wanted was her little life. She didn't want their story publicized, but she knew it was important to Ivan, so she

agreed. After that situation, I wanted to flatten myself to the floor so no one could see or hear me, she told me. I'm talking to you, and I realize internally, man, this is important. And as they say, am I a quivering miserable creature or do I have rights? That's the eternal question. Am I a quivering miserable creature or do I have rights? No one could fault them for being afraid Defection is dangerous

Inside and outside the country Russians who speak out against Putin and up dead country, Russians who speak out against Putin end up dead. Seemingly unimportant individuals are hunted, harassed, threatened, shot, thrown off balconies in the European Union or the United States. Journalists, activists, people few have ever heard of have been poisoned, beaten, had chemicals thrown in their faces. But the worst punishments are reserved for former members of the regime, who have died in any number of curious circumstances. The higher the profile a person has, the greater the risk. A pilot who flew his helicopter into Ukraine in a public relations coup for Kiev was found dead in Spain.

His body, riddled with bullets, was then run over by the assassin's car. As Dmitry Medvedev, the former president and prime minister, put it, dogs die a dog's death. Was it the work of the regime or its mafioso enthusiasts? Did it matter when you were dead? As a result, very few deserters from the Russian military have spoken to the media. I reported this article in eight countries across four continents and interviewed eighteen deserters. Many of those who fought in Ukraine had been sent to the training exercise at the border

in February 2022. As soon as they saw war was happening, they started looking for ways out. I didn't have much of a choice, one lieutenant explained. I wasn't told, so, look, either you go to lunch or we're going to take over Ukraine. I was told to get in the car and drive. I was trapped. If I had gotten out when we were crossing the Ukrainian border and run in the opposite direction, I would have been shot.

What could I have done? Killed my brigade commander? It wouldn't have made a difference. Another brigade commander would just take his place. No matter how many people I ask, what would you have done if you were in my position, they say, well, I would probably do what you did. In the end, the lieutenant tried to break his own hand with a rock multiple times, but couldn't manage to do it.

Another man I interviewed organized a group of subordinates to shoot one another in the own hand with a rock multiple times, but couldn't manage to do it. Another man I interviewed organized a group of subordinates to shoot one another in the thigh, shin, and arm. Others bided their time, returned on leave, and ran away from their base. One of them lost his entire life savings to a huckster in Kazakhstan, was forced to return to Russia, and fled the country a second time to Armenia. His wife was against it. Everyone's going, she said.

And you're a coward. She stayed in Russia with their child and doesn't speak to him anymore. I spoke to a young gay soldier who went from his military desk job to Pushkin Square in central Moscow to protest on the day the full-scale invasion began. On that day, arrest would have been life-destroying even for a civilian, to say nothing of an active-duty service member in a country that defines the LGBTQ movement as extremism. He tried to terminate his contract even before the invasion, but his request wasn't granted, so he fled to Kazakhstan.

His boyfriend, a teacher, joined him later. Without a foreign passport, he stayed in hiding with his partner in a conservative country where violence against the queer community is normal. The couple lived in limbo for over a year without refugee status, unable to leave the CSTO, with the daily fear of being pushed back into Russia and jailed, like Mikhail Zhilin, the Federal Guard Service Officer, and Dmitry Setrikov, a deserter who of being pushed back into Russia and jailed, like Mikhail Zhilin, the Federal Guard Service

Officer and Dmitry Setrikov, a deserter who Aditya Lesum reported was tracked down and kidnapped in Armenia to be returned to Russia. One time when the police knocked on their door, the young man panicked so much that he started climbing out of the apartment's third-story window. His boyfriend anxiously answered the door, preparing himself to face imprisonment for abetting. The couple have since fled to safety, but many deserters remain stuck in the CSTO. One young man who worked as a defense ministry videographer was sent to Ukraine twice and

couldn't figure out how to flee. His international passport, like Ivan's, was locked in a safe at his base's human resources office. Thinking he had no other options, he decided to use the opportunity to try to collect footage of Russian crimes for history. The deserters I spoke to who don't have passports and are trapped in CSTO countries believe that their salvation is Europe or the United States, but neither place will have them. Kamil Kasimov was arrested, forcibly returned to Russia, and sentenced to six years in prison for desertion. He worked for a rocket brigade that launched missiles into Ukraine. He was deployed

during the training exercise, but he didn't shoot anything himself. He didn't know what they were doing, couldn't pinpoint where he had been, and fled as soon as he worked up the nerve. In April 2024, the Russian and Kazakh authorities went to the 23-year-old's place of work and detained him, holding him on a Russian base in the south of Kazakhstan, where he was pressured to return to Russia to face charges. It has become much more dangerous in Kazakhstan this year. Artur Agustaf, his lawyer at the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, told me recently,

We received unverified information that Kamil was not the only one. There were also attempts to kidnap other deserters. Even having an international passport did not guarantee salvation. I met one man at an outdoor cafe in Tbilisi where he chain-smoked nervously. He'd avoided deployment for a year and a half. When he was transferred to another unit and it looked as if he was about to be ordered to Ukraine, he escaped. He left his wife and two children behind and did not know when he would be able to see

them again. He tried to apply for a humanitarian visa from the European Union. He dropped his application off at embassy after embassy and received no reply. He bought a ticket to Mexico that flew through Europe, planning to claim asylum in the EU as the Germans had promised, but he was stopped from boarding the plane despite having a valid passport. I often think about whether I should have done this, he told me over telegram months after we met.

I don't know anymore. I'm stuck and scared. At my most difficult moments I think maybe I should have just gone to prison in Russia. At least there would have been an end date to my sentence. He wondered if he should use his remaining money to try to actually get to Mexico and cross the U.S US border on foot. Deserters have told me recently that Russians are being taken off flights to Mexico despite being allowed visa-free travel.

After over a year of hiding in Georgia, the man recently arrived in the EU. It's impossible to know the real statistics of desertion. MediaZona, an independent investigative outlet in exile, says there have been almost 7,400 AWOL cases in military courts since the start of mobilization. But experts agree that's only a fraction of the number who have tried to escape. Aditya Lesam has helped around 1,500 military men

flee the country. The Russian authorities, meanwhile, have made it more and more difficult to avoid service. Last year the authorities raised the maximum age of conscription to 30 from 27, which will increase the number in the pool to at least 700,000 by 2025. A military summons no longer has to physically reach a person. Sending it electronically is enough. People who ignore the summons for more than 20 days lose the right to drive a car, get a loan, and buy or sell property. Despite this, the number of deserters continues to rise. This March, according to MediaZona,

Russian military courts sentence a record 34 men per day. The growth in 2024 is unprecedented," it wrote. Soldiers most frequently receive suspended sentences so they can return to base, apologize, and be sent straight back to the front line. In May, Putin replaced Defense Minister Shoigu with Andrei Belosov, first deputy prime minister and one of his most trusted economic advisors. The reshuffle showed how intertwined the military and economy had become, and how committed Putin remained to waging a long-term war. Analysts saw it as an attempt to clean up military corruption once and for all, or at

least to signal that the regime was trying. For two years Putin had tolerated military bloggers criticizing the Ministry of Defense for corruption and poor management, as long as it did not implicate the Kremlin itself. Many saw this as a check on the military, a productive release valve for frustration with the war, as well as a well-honed tactic pitting parts of the regime against one another as each tries to win Putin's favor, a trademark of his twenty-four-year reign. The Wagner founder Yevgeny Prokofiev's sin was to openly challenge Putin's rule.

For this, his plane was exploded in the sky. The Kremlin continues to rely on the age-old strategy of throwing waves of infantry at the front, and the casualty toll is now astronomical. During a Russian push for territory this May, British intelligence estimated that roughly 1,250 Russian soldiers were killed or injured each day, and that up to half a million Russians have been killed or wounded since the beginning of the invasion. Still, Russia continues to recruit 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers per month, about the same number that leave the battlefield as casualties.

Last year's increased recruitment drive, which included 50,000 male and female convicts, as well as people who previously would have been exempt for mental or physical impairments, allowed the Russians to continue to stabilize the force. According to the policy group ReRussia, from July 2023 to July 2024, the Russian regime has paid families of those killed and wounded approximately $34 billion, roughly 8 percent of the federal budget. Ukraine meanwhile is running out of weapons and troops. Ukrainian military casualties are a closely guarded secret. The most recent estimate of 31,000 is definitely an undercount.

More than 11,500 civilians have been killed in two and a half years of war, including at least 600 children. Russian troops have been accused of rape, torture, and extrajudicial executions. A generation of Ukrainians are growing up in bomb shelters. The Russian regime has spent at least $211 billion to inflict this horror. In August, Kiev brought the war home to Russia, the first time the country has been invaded since World War II. The Ukrainians launched a surprise attack,

shocking Western officials and quickly pushing seven miles into Russia. They took prisoners, including hundreds of baby-faced conscripts who were manning the border and surrendered in droves, rekindling memories of Chechnya and Afghanistan. Ukraine would come to control at least 28 towns and villages, while the Russians would evacuate more than a hundred and thirty-two thousand people. If Ukraine's current story is being told as one of resilience, Russia's has been cast as a tale of bottomless moral passivity. Indeed, acquiescence is its own form of tacit support.

For decades the Russian had been a faceless evil in the American psyche. This time it seems the reputation was deserved. A terrible country fighting a terrible war. I had spoken to deserters online before I met one of them in person for the first time in a park in Tbilisi. I was apprehensive, worried that I would be followed and exposed someone or that I would meet an FSBS.B. plant and endanger myself. I arrived early to check the area and saw a lanky young man sitting on a bench. He was more afraid of me than I was of him. He had been a lieutenant when the invasion began.

He feigned a suicide attempt, got himself locked up in a mental institution, was threatened with torture and with being chained to the commander's radiator, was told he would be killed, and was then ostracized by his own family for refusing to deploy to Ukraine. The lieutenant had never been out of the country, so he plotted to leave methodically, making lists of the things he would need to pack, down to a precise number of socks. Then one night he vanished from his base, from his life, into the complete unknown. Now here he was in an empty park, meeting someone who messaged him online, claiming to be a journalist.

When a person says I'm a deserter, a coordinator of Intransit, a secretive network based in Germany that helped smuggle activists out of Russia told me, people think they are just afraid and that's it. They don't understand the remarkable things that they've done. They're not only victims, but many of them are really heroes and they need support. I spoke to quite a few men like this, whose stories contained less moral ambiguity than Ivan's. They either left after being forced to fight in the initial invasion, or tried unsuccessfully to break their contracts and then fled.

I could have written an article about any one of them, but Ivan's story painted a more representative picture of the Russian servicemen. Patriotism is often not the main motivation to fight. It's money. And generally, for Russians, if the war doesn't touch their family, they try to ignore it. There is a nationwide desire to eat the fish and sit on the dick. More gracefully and graciously, it could be described as avos, a word for the Russian attitude of ignoring the possibility of

negative outcomes, with the belief that luck predetermines the result anyway. Three men in Kazakhstan, Alkustov, the human rights lawyer, and two former service members, worked together to verify stories of deserters in anticipation that this status might one day qualify them for residency in the EU. This is done to address the concern of European politicians, which in transit and a detail less some have encountered, that such a decision would invite spies, killers, or Russian patriots into their countries. They hear deserter testimonies in video calls and review supporting paperwork to write reports

to share with human rights organizations that petition foreign affairs ministries. I told all three of them an abridged version of Ivan's story. Each had a different interpretation. When he was shown the combat order, he did not refuse it, said Alexei Alshansky, the Warren officer who used Photoshop to alter uniforms, and who is now an analyst at the Conflict Intelligence Team. On the day he was shown the combat order,

he could have left to Kazakhstan. He was not a wanted man yet. All this time while he was shown the combat order, he could have left to Kazakhstan. He was not a wanted man yet. All this time, while he was telling you how he was walking around, agonizing, suffering, looking for solutions, writing reports, all this time he could calmly leave. This is a man who had every opportunity to not go to this war, not go to jail, and keep himself and his family safe. But he made the decision to go to war. How do you morally treat this?

Bad." "'You can't demand some kind of heroism from people,' Alkustov interjected. "'We must remember one thing. We cannot shift responsibility from the politicians who make decisions and the generals who execute them onto the soldiers.' The third man, the lieutenant who had been deployed to Ukraine during the initial invasion, and had tried and failed to break his own hand with a rock, and who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, told me, A person who is brought up and raised in a military

family, then had the goal of graduating from a military school, becoming an officer, cannot see himself without military service. He will never dare to leave Russia. He will never be able to break that core, he continued with admiration. That's a hero. This is truly a man who has transcended himself and, in my opinion, made the right choice. He was brought up with the conviction that Russia and the Army are everything in life. He doesn't see himself without it, and if he dared to do it, he overstepped himself. When I met Ivan, I was struck by his earnestness. He had a

sincere desire to better himself and his life. His candor seemed born of genuine guilelessness. He was personable, funny, and warm, and he spoke of his self-interest openly. When we discussed attending funerals or presenting the coffins of fallen soldiers to their families, Ivan was honest. He didn't go to the services of the men who perished under his command, and he didn't want to, whether it was his duty as the platoon commander or not. Officially, a military representative must attend a soldier's funeral. Though it's not obligatory, it's considered honorable behavior for the commander to be the one present.

I thought maybe we were having a miscommunication in Russian, but he assured me that he didn't feel a moral obligation. It seemed to me it was because it wasn't his war, but he never even tried to make that excuse. That would be the right thing to do, but not everything that is right is what we want to do, he told me. If there was an option not to go, I wouldn't. This is the moral morass of a nation. Still, Ivan spent ages looking for a piece of paper that had all his platoon members' names on it so he could show it to me. He tried to reconstruct the list for months after I left.

He didn't know the name of the engineer whose body they left by the crater, and this really bothered him. He wanted me to write about the soldiers he lost, to use their real call signs, to commemorate these men who behaved heroically toward their comrades in arms. He worried that it wasn't his place to publicize their names, but he also wanted their sacrifice to be known. Apricot, the machine gunner. If it wasn't for him, things could have been even worse,

Ivan said. This man really acted heroically. He didn't go anywhere. He didn't retreat. He started to cover us. He gave the rest of us a chance to jump into that hole. A Prakat is survived by two daughters and a common-law spouse. Because they were not officially married, his wife did not receive the coffin payment. Ivan protected the men he could, as long as it did not risk his own safety. He never sent one of his subordinates to the S.V.O. against his will. When he told me that, he wasn't saying it to show off or to justify himself. He was direct and matter of fact. He openly admitted that he helped send others to the front.

This did not strike him as problematic. Ivan shared hundreds of pages of documents that supported his account. He showed me photographs that he had taken and that had been taken of him throughout his life. And we read his personal chat history together. All day, every day for a week, we sat in a hotel conference room and reviewed his life. Anna did not want me to go into their house. To tell your story to a journalist in such excruciating detail requires a confounding mix of blind faith,

bravery, trust, and total self-disregard. The hours we spent going over details and Ivan being asked, but why didn't you X? was its own kind of torture. A confessional with no absolution. Perhaps Ivan felt he was performing penance, but he said he simply wanted to save other Russian officers from repeating his fate. I also verified parts of his story with two service members from his base. Look, basically everyone involved is a murderer in one way or another, Ivan said. I realize

that each of us, each Russian, is involved in this. Every one of us participated. We have allowed this old man to be in power for so many years. And there's also this anger that I had to quit. My contract was almost over. It was officially the end of the contract. I should have been a civilian by now. And all my plans, my whole life, was ruined by this old grandfather, Vladimir Vladimirovich. What right does he have to control my life?"

When he looked back on it all, Ivan couldn't believe that there were still people in Russia who knew full well what was going on, what their future could hold, and yet stayed. Not because they supported the war, but because they genuinely continued to believe that it wouldn't affect them. For so many years Putin had offered them all protection, and now they just wanted to keep their heads down. A stupor of an existence. A voss. This learned indifference to the obvious, to the grinding of the bones of their own. Ivan's parents, for whom Putin remained sacred, of their own. Ivan's parents, for whom Putin remained sacred, his friends outside the services who just wanted to live their lives without being bothered by anything else, all fervent patriots,

criminals, and regime opponents alike perished at the front. What remains of the country's opposition is now in exile where they have been joined by those who awakened from this torpor. Over and over again for generations, Russia's greatest strength has been its habit of destroying itself. And the regime endures. Anna and Ivan grew up under the reign of Vladimir Vladimirovich. They had never participated in a real election, never thought much about what the Kremlin did or didn't do overseas. Their parents' generation had sleepwalked into autocracy, too exhausted to protest. They focused on trying to stay alive amid the turbulence of changes no one prepared them for.

Unlike them, Anna and Ivan came of age in an era of booming oil prices and optimism. They had big plans for their small life. The Russian army offered a path to socioeconomic stability. There was no shame in serving the homeland. They worked hard to buy an apartment, to improve their circumstances, to have a child. But their dreams would be destroyed by much larger geopolitical machinations.

They would, like many of their compatriots, practice a kind of self-mutilating patience that cost them everything they cherished most. Now they lived in the twilight of perpetual anxiety, a paranoia that was impossible to fully shake. Small ordinary milestones became minefields. The first time Sasha got bullied. A classmate said Russians were all evil and Sasha came home crying. Anna tried to explain that her child, who loved kittens and made it a point to hug the principal every day, had no responsibility for this war. But Sasha

brought up Ivan's military uniform. What of the last two years did their child remember? How much would they tell Sasha one day? For how many generations should guilt travel? This was never a story about heroes or bravery, a valiant victor or a helpless victim. From the beginning, Ivan wanted me to make that clear. It is a story about the dangers of an act of independence after a life of conformity, and about how defection from Putin's system is a production of the New York Times written by Sarah A. Topol and narrated

by Liev Schreiber. The original music was written and performed by Aaron Esposito. Our audio producer was Tania Perez, and our engineers were Paul Panias and Sophia Lammon. Additional audio production by Adrian Hirst and Jack Desidero. Special thanks at the New York Times Magazine to Gail Bickler, Renan Borelli, Ben Grand Jeanette, Mark Janot, Snigdha Koirala, Kaitlyn Roper, Kate LaRue, Jake Silverstein, and Shannon Simon. And at New York Times Audio to Tyler Cabot, Kelly Doee, Sam Dolnik, Nina Lassam, Maddie Mastiello,

Jeffrey Miranda, and John Woo.