The methods of mobilization in Russia, with the aim of sending soldiers to Ukraine, justify, according to the National Court of the Right of Asylum, protecting those who try to escape.
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France can grant refugee status to Russian soldiers who have refused to fight in Ukraine, according to the doctrine adopted by the National Court of Asylum (CNDA) on Thursday 20 July. “Russians fleeing mobilization for the war in Ukraine and those mobilized who have deserted can obtain refugee status”said the CNDA in a press release.
For the Court, “a Russian national called as part of this mobilization” is indeed “likely to commit, directly or indirectly, war crimes”. This doctrine, the first in France concerning deserters from the Russian army, is based on a European directive of December 13, 2011 and a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union of February 26, 2015.
A thorough review
While stating this doctrine, the Court rejected the asylum application of a Russian who presented himself as a deserter, considering “that the statements and the documents produced did not make it possible to establish that the applicant had been mobilized in the context of the war” from Russia to Ukraine.
The 28-year-old Russian applicant had left Russia in April 2019 due to “violent and repeated” acts by his father, then received two summonses as part of the partial mobilization initiated by President Vladimir Putin on September 21, 2022, as part of the war in Ukraine. After an initial refusal from the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, he also failed to convince the nine CNDA judges.