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Mobilised soldier Igor Sandzhiev, who twice fled from his military unit, is unable to obtain asylum in Kazakhstan. He himself told OVD-Info about this.
Igor was mobilised in September 2022 and sent to Volgograd, a major city in southern Russia, for training. After two months, being “a supporter of pacifist views,” he left his military unit.
In January 2023, Igor went to Belarus in an attempt to reach the Schengen area, but he was unable to obtain a visa. As a result, Sandzhiev was detained by Belarusian KGB officers and placed under administrative arrest for 15 days. Afterwards, he was deported to Russia and banned from entering Belarus for 10 years.
On arrival in Moscow, Igor was detained by police officers. It turned out he was on the federal wanted list in a criminal case under the article on assault. Igor said the case was opened on the complaint of a person unknown to him; he believes this was a pretext for announcing him as wanted.
The man was taken back to the same military unit he had left in the autumn. Sandzhiev’s passport and mobile phone were confiscated without any documentation. Igor was held in a former armoury room under guard by other mobilised soldiers. Soon, he managed to escape, illegally crossed the border into Kazakhstan and requested political asylum there.
Igor was not granted refugee status; instead, he was given a six-year suspended sentence under the charge of illegal border crossing:
‘I came to seek protection from the state, but I was convicted.’ Igor submitted a petition to the President of Kazakhstan, but the document was not delivered to the head of state.
In April 2023, a criminal case was opened against Igor Sandzhiev for going AWOL (Article 337, Part 5 of the Criminal Code). He is on the interstate wanted list, and Russia is demanding his extradition.
Sandzhiev’s relatives, as well as his former colleagues, neighbours and acquaintances, are being summoned en masse for questioning, being asked about his life and made to write explanations about it. In addition, they have been threatened with criminal charges because of their contact with Igor.
- In January 2024, Igor Sandzhiev was fined 30,000 rubles (US$330) under the administrative article on “discrediting the army”: the reason was interviews he gave to foreign journalists.