Life among the Russian refuseniks

It was getting dark outside Yerevan Airport when I arrived, but there were still a dozen flights from Russia yet to land. Groups of young men in their twenties and thirties were milling around the terminal building, stacking suitcases onto trolleys, changing money and working out what to do next. Armenia is one of the few countries they can still fly to since much of the western world closed its skies to Russian planes; it is almost alone in not requiring them to have visas.

‘I’m just here for a holiday,’ one weary traveller carrying four heavy bags insists, ‘everything is fine in Moscow.’ Others are more up front about their reasons for leaving. Last week President Vladimir Putin signed a mobilisation order that will see tens of thousands of ordinary citizens drafted into the army and sent to fight his increasingly catastrophic war in Ukraine. ‘I booked my ticket the moment he finished speaking,’ says Yuri, a 28-year-old working for a biomedical technology firm.