12 Tuesday May 17 2022 | the times
News
Russian dissident exiles are being
turned away from Europe in an act of
“friendly fire”, a leading human rights
scholar who was put on the Kremlin’s
blacklist has said.
Dmitry Dubrovksy, who fled Russia
in March, said academics, journalists
and activists opposed to the Putin
regime were falling victim to a misguid-
ed hostility towards all Russians,
regardless of their political position.
Several EU nations, including the
Czech Republic, Poland, the Nether-
lands and Estonia, have stopped issuing
visas to Russians in response to the
invasion. The situation means that
thousands of dissidents are being left in
a state of limbo, able neither to return to
Russia nor find sanctuary elsewhere.
Dubrovsky, 52, a former human
rights academic at the University of
St Petersburg, was placed on Russia’s
list of “foreign agents” in April, a month
after he fled, meaning that he would
almost certainly be arrested were he to
return. Now in Prague on a 90-day
Schengen visa, which allows holders to
travel within the EU, Dubrovksy, his
wife and two sons, aged 8 and 15, will be
forced to leave the EU at the start of
next month.
He had been offered a post at Charles
University in the city, but was unable to
apply for a work permit because the
Czech government has suspended the
issuing of visas for Russian citizens.
He has also been offered a position at
Vienna university. Although Austria
has not placed a ban on visas for Rus-
sians, he was told he could only apply
for the work permit while in Russia.
A short-term posting at King’s Col-
lege London was offered to Dubrovsky,
but again, he had to turn it down
because of visa complications. He
applied for a six-month visa but was al-
lowed to stay for only three months,
without explanation. Dubrovsky said
he had considered applying for refugee
status but decided against it as he would
not be able to work for about a year.
“In my experience, universities are
very keen to take on Russian exiles, but
it is the political situation in Europe
that is the problem,” Dubrovksy said.
“This is idiotic as the victims of this
ban are those who oppose Putin’s
regime. It’s simply friendly fire. More-
over, it plays into Putin’s propaganda of
widespread Russophobia in the West.”
The Kremlin has not released any
figures on the number who have left,
but OK Russians, an information site
set up by recent emigrants, estimates it
is more than 300,000 since the start of
the war in Ukraine. Rather than lament
what amounts to a huge brain drain,
President Putin has praised the “natu-
ral and necessary self-detoxification” of
Russian society, and labelled those
departing “scum and traitors”.
A hundred years ago White Russians
escaping the Bolshevik revolution
largely fled to Berlin and Paris. Today
visa restrictions and the high cost of liv-
ing mean that only a small fractionThere has been a spate of arson attacks
on military recruitment offices in
Russia amid growing evidence that the
Kremlin has begun a process of covert
mobilisation to replenish the ranks of
its depleted army.
Masked assailants threw petrol
bombs at the offices of four regional
enlistment centres across western
Russia over the weekend.
Since the start of the war there have
been at least 11 similar attacks but the
latest incidents suggest a significant
rise in violent anti-war dissent within
Russia.
It is unclear whether the attacks were
co-ordinated but they may have come
in response to an unannounced mobili-
sation.
Although Putin has yet to declare full
mobilisation, which would bring a huge
number of the civilian population
under arms, a form of covert recruit-
ment has already begun, with men of all
ages being invited to their local
Military recruiters hit by arsonists
enlistment office for “military registra-
tion”.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of intelligence
at Ukraine’s Ministy of Defence, said
Russia was forming new units of reserv-
ists, who would probably have scant
training and little motivation to fight.
He said: “This covert mobilisation is
already under way and we have prison-
ers who were brought in under this
system.”
Local businesses are also being called
on. According to Pavel Chikov, head of
Agora, a human rights group, a com-
pany in St Petersburg received a letter
demanding the use of one of its cars.
Russia has also begun its annual
conscription of men between the ages
of 18 and 27, who are required to per-
form one year’s compulsory military
service. Budanov said the Kremlin was
considering changes to conscription
law that would allow men of conscrip-
tion age to be called up at any point
throughout the year.
“They are also considering increas-
ing the sentence for avoiding militaryservice... People are trying en masse to
avoid going to war in Ukraine,” he said.
The attacks over the weekend were
reported on the Telegram app by a dis-
sident group known as “VataHunters”.
It has also published instructions on
how to sabotage railway lines.
“The goal has been to destroy the
archive with the personal files of con-
scripts — it is located in these areas.
This should prevent mobilisation in the
district,” VataHunters wrote after
announcing an attack on a recruitment
centre near Moscow.
The group has also published
guidance for Russians on how to avoid
military call-up. The guide states that
refusing to take part in the “special
operation” is not a crime, as martial law
has not been officially declared.
On May 5 two men attacked a re-
cruitment centre in the city of
Nizhnevartovsk, western Siberia. One
of the men filmed the other hurling at
least seven petrol bombs through a
glass door and window into the build-
ing, starting a fire.Tom Ball
J
udging by the number of
European Union leaders
visiting Ukraine in recent
weeks it would be easy to
assume it is Brussels that is
solely responsible for equipping the
brave resistance of President
Zelensky and his people.
But while Charles Michel,
president of the European Council,
talks of the EU’s “unprecedented”
response to Russian aggression,
saying the EU is “determined to do
everything we can to support
Ukraine”, the sad reality is that
beneath all the rhetoric, the photo
opportunities and recycled pledges,
the EU continues to prevaricate
while it is the Anglosphere that is
busy helping Ukraine to save itself.
In fact, if Ukrainians were relying
on the EU alone, the war mightukraine in brief
Orban resists embargo
European foreign ministers have
pressed Hungary to drop its
resistance to a proposed embargo on
Russian oil. Viktor Orban, the
Hungarian prime minister, has been
accused of holding the union to
ransom and is demanding an
exemption from the ban for four
years. His foreign minister said if it
halted imports it could cost between
€15 billion and €18 billion to rebuild
Hungary’s energy infrastructure.The frontman of Ukraine’s Kalush
Orchestra, which won the Eurovision
Song Contest, has returned home to
help people fleeing the war. Oleh
Psiuk, who wears a trademark pink
bucket hat, runs a volunteer group
that helps refugees with medicine,
accommodation and food. Psiuk said
he was willing to enlist. He said: “Like
every Ukrainian, I am ready to fight.”Eurovision star joins war
News War in Ukraine
Visa clampdown
leaves anti-Putin
exiles stranded
Tom Ball have gone to those cities. It is likely that
few Russians have chosen to come to
the UK, for the same reason. A spokes-
man said there were no limitations on
Russian citizens with long-term visas
applying to work.
The vast majority of Russians have
headed for former Soviet states, such as
Georgia and Armenia, which have no
visa requirements and share the same
language, according to a survey by OK
Russians. The Armenian Ministry of
Finance estimates that more than
100,000 Russians have arrived since
the invasion, many of them IT workers
whose companies have relocated to
avoid the effect of sanctions.
For political exiles, however, the
Caucasus may not be safe, Dubrovsky
said, due to the high level of infiltration
by the Russian security services there.
Andrey Kalikh, 49, a journalist and
democracy campaigner, said many
were being forced to return to Russia
because of the difficulties of securing a
safe and permanent base in Europe.
“We are not refugees, but it feels like
we are refugees,” said Kalikh, who left
Russia in March and who is considering
going home, having travelled through
Slovakia and Israel.
Lithuania, the staunchly anti-Russi-
an Baltic state, has emerged as the most
important centre for political exiles.
Since the wave of protests across Bel-
arus in 2020, after President Luka-
shenko’s rigged election, the country
has followed a policy of providing safe
haven for Belarusian and Russian polit-
ical activists, including Svetlana Ti-
khanovskaya, the Belarusian opposi-
tion leader.
The anti-corruption foundation of
the Russian opposition leader Alexei
Navalny has established itself in Vilni-
us, as have many journalists, bloggers
and activists. Maria Alyokhina, a
founding member of Pussy Riot, the
Russian feminist punk protest group,
recently arrived in the city.
President Putin appeared to give
President Rahmon of Tajikistan the
“side eye” during a security meetingAid from the
Eoin Drea
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