According to Migri, the fear of being sent into battle does not automatically entitle an applicant to be granted asylum in Finland.
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A Russian asylum seeker in Imatra last summer. Image: Silja Viitala / Yle
Nearly 600 Russian asylum seekers are awaiting asylum decisions from the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri).
According to Migri Senior Adviser Eppu Ojala, the agency is prioritising those whose applications have been pending for more than six months. The goal is to announce decisions by the end of April.
Ojala noted that there are many such cases due to a wave of young Russian men who sought asylum in 2022, citing mobilisation and military service.
In September of that year, seven months after Moscow began its full-scale attack on Ukraine, it declared a partial mobilisation of military reservists. At least 150,000 Russian troops have been killed in nearly three years of war, reports the New York Times.
Conscription is not necessarily persecution
According to Migri, the fear of being sent to the front does not automatically entitle an applicant to be granted asylum in Finland.
“If you look at the UN Refugee Handbook, military service in itself is not an act that can be considered persecution. But if military service includes war crimes or similar activities, it could be. According to our own guidelines, we consider that the involvement of Russians in the war in Ukraine may include war crimes, in which case it could be grounds for asylum,” she told the Finnish News Agency STT on Sunday.
According to Ojala, the key factor to be assessed is what kind of punishment or persecution a person would face if they refuse to participate in the war.
More than 70,000 Ukrainians have fled to Finland since the war began. Some 27,000 of them have been granted right of domicile in Finnish municipalities.
In October 2022, shortly after the mobilisation began, Finland began housing Ukrainian temporary protection applicants and Russian asylum seekers at different reception centres.
That followed a complaint from the Ukrainian Association in Finland, which said that the placement of Russian men near Ukrainian women and children posed a significant threat to their mental and physical well-being.