Russian citizens who are fleeing the country to avoid being drafted into Putin’s war against Ukraine should seek asylum in the United States, the White House said Tuesday.
The press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at her regular briefing that the response inside Russia to the so-called “partial mobilization” ordered last week by the country’s president, Vladimir Putin, shows that “this war started by the Kremlin it is unpopular.”
“Regardless of their nationality, [people] can apply for asylum in the United States and have their applications adjudicated on a case-by-case basis,” added Jean-Pierre. “We welcome anyone seeking asylum and they should.
“What we are seeing in Russia is that the people of Russia say that they do not want this war, that they do not support Putin’s war”, he continued.
The military convocation, in which the Kremlin seeks to recruit some 300,000 men for the fighting in Ukraine, has provoked protests, violence and that thousands of Russians flee and gather at the borders of Russia.
In addition, airline tickets to the few countries that still accept direct flights from Russia have been sold out for several days, whose passengers want to avoid enlisting in Putin’s army.
In the southern Russian province of Dagestan over the weekend, a group of women protesting against the war shouted “no to war” as they chased police officers and demanded the release of others anti-war protesters. Protests continued in Dagestan on Monday and included frequent clashes with the police.
In Ryazan , 100 miles southeast of Moscow, a man set himself on fire Monday while yelling that he didn’t want to go to war.
The government of Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic that shares a large southern border with Russia, said on Tuesday that approximately 98,000 Russians had arrived in the country in the week since the mobilization was announced.
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that his government would not send Russians who had been drafted into the army back across the border.
Morality among the The Russian military has been suffering since the early stages of the war, and forcing its citizens, many of whom have no military training, to join the fight is unlikely to help, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said. .
“Since the first weeks of the war, Russia has struggled to keep its forces motivated without being able to equip them with basic necessities such as food and fuel,” Ryder added.
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· Flights to leave Russia are exhausted after Putin announced the mobilization of 300 thousand soldiers