Hundreds of Russian antiwar dissidents, who are targeted by Moscow, are fleeing the country with the help of a secretive network of groups, according to The New York Times.
There are at least five organizations set up to help the activists escape Russia. The groups work outside of Russia and plan escape routes that can include cars, travel money, safe houses, and visas, the news outlet reported.
"In a situation where everyone is against you, including your own relatives, who think that you are a traitor and are ready to hang you from the nearest lamppost, I was extremely pleased to discover that there are people who don't know you at all, who've never seen you, and they are ready to help," said Oleg Zavyalov, 31.
He was reunited with his older brother, Vladimir, months after the two fled to different countries from the city of Smolensk in western Russia.
In another case, a group calling itself In Transit helped three women escape Russia after they had been falsely accused of plotting to firebomb a military enlistment office.
Their six-day journey from Vladivostok to Kazakhstan put them in six different cars over more than 4,000 miles.
"We were scared," said one of the young women, all students, aged 16, 17, and 19 — so much so that they purposely didn't talk to people in the streets when they switched cars for fear of informers and surveillance cameras.
In Transit was set up by three women from St. Petersburg, Russia, who found that people targeted in the sweeping arrests of antiwar protesters after the invasion last February would need help fleeing. The group is based in Berlin.
And the Times pointed out that it is not just antiwar demonstrators being targeted by the government. In some cases, those expressing sympathy for Ukrainian refuges have been rounded up.
More than 600 antiwar protesters were detained in Russia back in September just hours after President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's first military draft since World War II, according to Russian news outlet SOTA Vision.
Most of the detainees are in Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to the news outlet.
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