Journalists Elizaveta Chugunova and Andrey Kazantsev have lived refugees in France since the invasion of Ukraine. After the partial mobilization ordered by Vladimir Putin, they collected the reactions of men who do everything to escape it.
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While the Kremlin organizes the mobilization, a good part of the country tries to escape it. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled abroad, others use all the imaginable stratagems to avoid being sent to the front.
Thus Alexei (the names were changed), originally from Oufa, capital of the Republic of Bachkirie, in the center of Russia. In 2007, the young man had a romantic relationship with Iekaterina, Tourinsk, in the Urals. Six months later, the young woman is pregnant. The fiancé did not plan to become a father. It suddenly disappears and no longer gives news.
Fifteen years later, Vladimir Putin’s war brooded in Iekaterina’s life, through a message received on social networks. “I never thought of writing to you, but unfortunately I have to do it, writes Alexei. I know that on you grows a boy whose father I should be. You must know that the times are hard and I still miss a birth certificate. Men with four children are exempt from mobilization. You can send me a walk, I would understand it. Do I have at least a chance? “
iekaterina thus discovers that Alexi already has three legitimate children of two different women. “Why should I give him a chance? Apses Iekaterina. He is a stranger for me.” She replied: “What child is it for you, if you know neither his name nor his date of birth ? He was raised by a completely different man, my husband. “
iekaterina says that her husband must also leave overnight. Between them, they have four children, but her husband has no intention of avoiding mobilization. “He is a real guy,” she says. He does not hide behind the children, unlike this Burne [sic] of Alexei, as he calls him. He is fit for military service and he Do not intend not to go there. I do shopping to buy a tent, a bulletproof vest, a first aid kit, gloves … Better to have them already in case he does not receive them on place. We have gathered everything and we are now waiting for it to be called. “
Mikhail works for the IT department of a Russian airline in a big city in the country. Despite the sanctions that have complicated the life of the business, planes continue to fly. Its use in the information technology sector is therefore essential, but the company has failed to exempt its mobilization staff.
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