As the war in Ukraine grinds into a third year, more Russian soldiers are attempting to escape frontline deployment, supported by an underground network of fellow Russians who are seeking to undermine Vladimir Putin’s war machine and save lives.
One of the lead groups helping Russian soldiers desert is called Idite Lesom (literally, through the forest). The name is a play on words, a reference to the covert nature of its work but also a popular Russian idiom which means "Get lost!”
For one soldier named Yevgeny, Get Lost helped him make a perilous escape to Kazakhstan but only after he had a friend and fellow soldier shoot him in the leg.
“You can only leave wounded or dead,” he says. “No one wants to leave dead.”
His act of desperation reflects the horrific conditions facing troops in Ukraine. But life in exile is not what many deserters had hoped for. Some face criminal cases back in Russia, where they face 10 years or more in prison. And many are also waiting for a welcome from the West that has never arrived. Instead, Yevgeny and others live in hiding, fearing deportation and persecution of themselves and their families.
For Western nations grappling with Russia’s vast and growing diaspora, Russian military defectors present particular concern: Are they spies? War criminals? Or heroes?
This episode of Reveal, produced in collaboration with The Associated Press, examines why Russian military defectors are not finding sanctuary in Western Europe or the U.S. and how demographics and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s willingness to accept enormous casualties in Ukraine could give Russia an edge in an emerging war of attrition.
The show also follows a Ukrainian man who knows all too well what a war of attrition really looks like. Oleksii Yukov is a martial arts instructor and leader of a team of volunteers who collect the remains of fallen soldiers, both Ukrainian and Russian. Yukov is on a spiritual quest to give these souls a final resting place.
“We are not fighting the dead,” Yukov says. “Our weapon is humanity and a shovel.”
