On Monday, members of the European Parliament, manly Germans representatives from several political parties called for the EU to do more for Russians fleeing conscription into the war.
“We believe that it’s the duty of the European Union and member states to protect Russian conscientious objectors and grant them asylum,” parliamentarians from the Social Democratic, Left and Green party wrote on Monday in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Council President Charles Michel and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
MEPs are calling for consultations on a common visa policy in order to adapt the guidelines and asylum procedures accordingly.
Among the signatories to the letter were German MEPs Udo Bollmann, Dietmar Koster and Matthias Ecke of the Social Democratic Party, Cornelia Ernst of the Left Party and Hannah Neumann and Eric Marquardt of the Green Party.
In the letter to EU leaders, MEPs point out that the Russian military leadership has set up at least 13 illegal detention centers in the occupied Ukrainian territories of Lugansk and Donetsk.
More than 600 Russians who refused to participate in Russia’s war against Ukraine are said to be detained there.
The RND cited data from the German Interior Ministry, according to which 2,485 Russian citizens of military age between the ages of 18 and 45 had applied for asylum in Germany by the end of April this year.
Of these requests, 814 were processed, 55 of which granted asylum and 88 were rejected.
The remaining 671 cases are under formal settlement of the proceedings, either by decisions under the Dublin Regulation or by withdrawal of the asylum application.
