Draft dodger who jumped from moving train faces deportation to Russia
A Russian who jumped from a moving train to escape being sent to war has reportedly been denied asylum in Finland.
Independent Russian media outlets say Daniil Mukhametov, 21, who fled Russia in June, has lodged an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights.
But if that is unsuccessful, he could be forced to return to Lithuania, the first EU country he reached, and from there be deported to Russia.
Sealed train crosses EU territory
In mid-June, Lithuanian police announced that a passenger on a sealed train between the Black Sea resort of Adler and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which crosses 140 miles of EU territory, had opened a door and jumped from the vehicle.
Passengers on the Adler-Kaliningrad route are subject to rigorous checks and restrictions to prevent them from leaving the train.
Authorities dispatched a helicopter and police officers with sniffer dogs to search for the fugitive, who was later identified as Mr Mukhametov, from the Russian republic of Bashkortostan.
But after jumping out near the Lithuanian town of Kybartai, close to the Russian border, the runaway fled to Finland.
He told reporters that he decided to flee Russia after receiving a summons from a military enlistment office in Moscow, where he was living at the time. The summons meant that he was prohibited from leaving the country.
Mr Mukhametov said he fled to Finland after jumping from the train because he feared authorities in Lithuania would deny him protection.
His escape led Lithuania to strengthen controls over the transit of Russian passengers through its territory. This included installing additional surveillance measures.
In a new interview with the Prague-based Russian news channel Current Time, Mr Mukhametov said that he saw “no choice” but to leave his home country.
“For me, the right choice was to refuse military service, to refuse to take up arms,” he told an interviewer from the channel, saying that when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, it “hurt that [he] could not stop it or influence it in any way”.
Authorities in Lithuania have previously said Mr Mukhametov may face deportation to Russia.
Finland refused asylum to 104 Russian citizens between January and September 2025, according to Russian media reports.
According to independent outlet Meduza, the Finnish Immigration Service has cited Russian officials saying that mobilisation is no longer happening in Russia as a reason for refusing to grant asylum based on avoiding conscription.
“I can talk about what I see, about how many people are dying and returning to Russia in coffins. About how I’ve read that conscripts are being forced to sign contracts,” Mr Mukhametov told Current Time.
A Finnish Immigration Service spokesman said in September that the country is guided by UN rules, under which the threat of military service alone does not qualify as grounds for asylum.