When I first started reporting “The Deserter,” I met with Idite Lesom, a group that helps Russian soldiers escape the war in Ukraine, whether they have already fought at the front lines or are trying to avoid deployment. I spent a few days learning more about its efforts and hearing about the situation for Russian officers, soldiers, drafted civilians, conscripts and deserters.
Idite Lesom connected me with deserters, and I began to interview them online through a special app the group recommends that it considers especially safe.
One of the first things that struck me was how economically motivated most enlistment was and how many benefits the Russian military promises young men (and it is overwhelmingly men) to entice them into service. I had previously reported an article about disenfranchised veterans of the U.S. armed forces who live in America’s colonies and territories, and while their motivation was also economic, there was a large dose of imbued patriotism as well. That did not seem to be the case for the average Russian soldier. (Of course, the group I spoke to might not have been the “average Russian soldier,” but even when discussing their former co-workers, they did not cite patriotism and love of country as a primary motivator for joining. The average annual salary in Russia is about $11,000; a sign-up bonus right now is more than $20,000.) As a rule, I never ask people to discuss anything they don’t want to talk about. I told these men that I wanted to hear about their lives and what happened to them. I recognized how dangerous it was for them to speak to a reporter. Then, after I had spoken to about a dozen deserters online, I decided I should start reporting on the ground.
As part of my reporting, I visited countries in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (The C.S.T.O. is Russia’s answer to NATO and includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) and began to meet deserters in public spaces. I did this for their safety and for my own. I wanted them to feel free to leave, to give them space and control, the ability to observe if they were being followed, to see that I was a woman, there alone. I interviewed most people I met three times, for a total of about five to 10 hours each. I did this regardless of whether I was going to write in detail about the person in the article, in order to understand the Russian military more broadly and to establish which experiences were common across Russian units, bases, human-resources offices and ranks and which experiences were unique.
We know little about what happens in the back rooms of our own military, much less what happens in Russia. Does hazing still exist? How does officer school work? What do people talk about on the base? How do they talk about Vladimir Putin? About the news? About the war on Ukraine? How do men address one another? What is the medical care like? How does a base’s canteen work? What does the base doctor do every day? (One doctor told me that his daily tasks included checking the hands and fingernails of food-service workers and testing the food to make sure it was not being poisoned.) What do men do for fun during their leave? How rigid is the system of officers and rank and file? What are the rituals that make Russian service Russian? I spoke to a number of men about the preparations for participating in the May 9 Victory Day parade. (Young men practice marching in step for nearly a year, starting with the specific position of their fingers and thumbs.)
This takes a lot of time and the patience and cooperation of sources. All this background is necessary to write an article as specific as the one I hope I’ve written and to illuminate the realities of Russian military service. Many men I spoke to were confused — wasn’t I there to ask about desertion? — but also heartened to know I wasn’t writing some kind of sensationalist portrayal. Many were very nervous about this possibility, and it required some persuasion and discussion to assure them that I was not interested in anything but the truth of their experience. They very much wanted me to understand that they felt they had no choice; many of them asked me, over and over again, what I would have done in their position.
I spoke to 18 deserters across four continents and eight countries. Often the deserters were too nervous to speak in coffee shops, because many people in the countries where we were meeting understand Russian, so I spent a lot of time outside in various parks. One man I spoke to over video after I left his country kept a balaclava on his face the whole time we were talking because he was sitting outside somewhere and didn’t want anyone passing by to overhear him and then find him later and kill him. He was the only deserter I spoke to who told me he had enlisted out of sheer enthusiasm, though it was less about Russian patriotism and more to experience war like a romantic adventure. He had wanted to complete his conscription service, but he failed medical checks and was disqualified; now, with military requirements so lax, he was finally able to prove his manhood to himself. He found that he did not, in fact, enjoy war. Nor did his daughter get the financial or educational benefits he had been promised upon signing his contract.
If a deserter fled as part of a couple, I always asked if I could speak to his partner. I was curious about the people these men left behind when they went to the front. Everyone’s wife, girlfriend or boyfriend agreed to speak. This is how I was also able to triangulate a lot of the things that were happening at home across Russia at the time of deployment. I also spoke to a lot of Russian NGOs and civil-society groups that were helping Russian emigrants.
I kept in touch with most of the deserters online after I left. I was surprised by how trusting of me many of them were and yet how scared they were of everyone else. Each one showed me his military paperwork, his real IDs and photographs of himself at the front, if he had any. (A few asked me for my IDs as well.) Some showed me Telegram group chats they had been on and talked about their commanders, their units and their responsibilities. I was interested in life before the invasion, what it had been like to serve the state, to complete mandatory national service, the rituals and milestones of the Russian forces, the relations between officers and kontraktniki, enlisted soldiers.
Every deserter I spoke to had a fascinating story of fleeing Russia. One man I interviewed organized a group of subordinates to shoot one another in the thigh, shin and arm. Another fled, ran to another city in Russia, was followed by F.S.B. officers there, then fled to a second city in Russia, where the F.S.B. officers parked outside his house and sat there waiting for him. He was a mobilized civilian truck driver. When I asked why the Russian state would spend so much time and energy on one man, he told me he, too, had no idea. One mobilized man simply walked out of a hole in the fence at his base that everyone knew was there. His mother met him, and together they hid from the authorities before she helped him flee the country. Another mother packed her son into a car two days after mobilization was announced and he was told he would deploy; she drove him for over 20 hours to the border, where they waited for eight hours to cross. (There were a lot of stories of amazing mothers.) I also heard stories of men who had lost their families because they refused to fight — wives who kept them away from their children, parents who disapproved of their sons and with whom the young men had cut contact.
When Ivan and I started talking, I was immediately drawn to his story because of the lengths he went to and the plots he concocted in order to flee, as well as all the complications he encountered on his way out of Russia. When we began talking, Ivan would jump into his story with great detail. He provided me with links, Google Maps coordinates and photos. He was as methodical in telling his story as he was in living it. Every time he had to get off the phone to go to work, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for our next interview, even though I knew how the story ended. The care Anna and Ivan took in planning the details of their escape was remarkable to me.
I was also drawn to what his story seemed to illuminate about Russian history and the development of the Russian Army from the wreckage of the former Soviet Union, as well as the mentality Ivan had lived from childhood — of service, of patriotism. He too seemed very committed to helping me understand the realities of service and the disillusionment that slowly eroded his romantic notions of adventure and defending his country.
I approached reporting this article and verifying Ivan’s story with the same rigorous skepticism and attention to verification that I apply to every story. Ivan and I sat for hours in a hotel conference room going over details of his life. (His wife, Anna, did not want me to go into their house.) He shared hundreds of pages of documents that supported his account — many of which showed his name and photograph — including his refusal report; his application for retraining, signed by his commander; and boarding passes for his flights to his final destination. He showed me photographs that he had taken and that had been taken of him throughout his life and his military career, and we read his personal chat history together. I also verified parts of his story with two service members from his base. They were further corroborated by news reports, open-source analysis and experts, as well as Russian-language Telegram channels of wives and soldiers.
Anna’s participation was of a different tenor. I have been a journalist for over 15 years, but I don’t know that I’ve ever conducted such involved and intimate interviews with someone who didn’t actually want to be speaking to me. I could sense her deep internal conflict and feel how much she was doing this for Ivan. Yet when I left them, she kept reaching out to me. Once she committed to doing something, like her husband she committed entirely. I interviewed and communicated with Anna and Ivan separately, not only because they are individuals but also because it helped me corroborate their memories and accounts.
Critics of the Russian regime around the world have often wound up hunted, threatened or killed, particularly former members of the services who speak out. Journalists and activists, people the public has rarely heard of, have been poisoned, beaten and had chemicals thrown in their faces. Given this precedent, it was clear to me that Ivan and Anna will never be truly safe from the threat of capture or reprisal. We agreed that I would keep the specifics of their biography vague enough to protect their security as much as possible. This is why I have used pseudonyms — for Anna, for Ivan and for their child, as well as for other people they mentioned in the story, who are identified either by a translation of their actual call sign or by the first letter of their real name or call sign.
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