Lieutenant Dmitry Mishov packed a rucksack and headed through the woods to seek asylum in Lithuania.
BBC News Russian, Vilnius
He is among a small handful of known cases of serving military officers fleeing the country to avoid being sent to Ukraine to fight - and the only case of a serving airman that the BBC knows of.Dmitry, an attack helicopter navigator, was based in the Pskov region, in north-western Russia. When the aircraft started to be prepared for combat, Dmitry sensed a real war was coming, not just drills.
He describes the mood in the army as mixed. Some men support the war, he says, some are dead against it. Very few believe they are fighting to protect Russia from real danger. This has long been the official narrative - that Moscow was forced to resort to a "special military operation" to prevent an attack against Russia.He says experienced air force officers are still paid their pre-war contract salary of up to 90,000 roubles .
Russian authorities rarely report military casualties. Last September, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia had lost around 6,000 men, a figure most analysts, including pro-Kremlin military bloggers considered an underestimate. While he was recovering in hospital, he read an article about a 27-year ex-police officer from the Pskov region who had successfully escaped to Latvia. Dmitry decided to follow his example.
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