On September 18, the first day of Russia's parliamentary elections, a 35-year-old Moscow advertising worker named Dmitry walked into his polling station and wrote one word across his ballot: "criminal."
Then he went to the airport and got on a plane to Istanbul.
"It's hard to believe your own state can just suddenly send you off to be slaughtered," he said, "but we've already seen it happen."
After the votes were counted, Putin declared that the turnout showed "the people of Russia support our efforts aimed at strengthening the country." Tens of thousands of Russian men disagree. They're leaving their country before Putin can send them to Ukraine.
On a single day in August, about 20,000 people crossed by land from Russia into Georgia, roughly three times the normal number. In one week, more than 113,000 went through a single mountain checkpoint called Upper Lars. They're filling up Georgia, Armenia, Turkey and Central Asia so fast that rents in parts of Armenia have jumped 30 to 50 percent since spring.
The groups that help Russians escape the draft are overwhelmed. Idite Lesom, whose name roughly means "Get Lost," says requests for help are up about 50 percent since spring. Kovcheg, which helps Russians build new lives abroad, says inquiries have increased eightfold since July.
According to Kovcheg founder Anastasia Burakova, the men leaving now are better prepared than the ones who fled in 2022. They're gathering documents, savings and apartments in advance, and they're leaving before any order comes down.
They have good reason to think one is coming. By Ukraine's count, Russia lost a record 46,230 soldiers in September alone, and recently lost more than 1,500 in a single day. Putin has already had to bring in North Korean soldiers to fill the gaps. A country that's winning a war doesn't need to borrow soldiers from Kim Jong Un. Putin has also replaced Russia's old twice-a-year draft with year-round conscription, with a target of 261,000 men for 2026.
Moscow's General Staff insists the new conscripts heading to their bases this month will not be sent to fight in Ukraine. Russia made the same promise in 2022. Within weeks of the invasion, the Defense Ministry had to admit conscripts were already in the war. In 2024, when Ukrainian forces crossed into Russia's Kursk region, they captured conscripts who weren't supposed to be anywhere near the fighting.
Leaving is getting harder. Russia now sends draft notices electronically, and the moment a man's name appears in the government's registry, he's banned from leaving the country. He doesn't have to sign for anything or even read the notice. Recruiters have been pressuring students and unemployed men to sign military contracts, sometimes with threats and false promises. Penalties for desertion have gone up, and contracts can now be extended for as long as the war lasts.
Some Russians have started fighting back. In the city of Penza, residents formed groups to protect local men from being grabbed and forced into service. Ordinary Russians are organizing to protect their sons, brothers and neighbors from their own government.
Meanwhile, the war is reaching Russia itself. Ukrainian drones have struck deep inside the country this year, disrupting airports and cutting fuel supplies in some regions.
Putin says there's nothing to worry about. Before the September elections, he dismissed talk of a new call-up. "That's utter rubbish," he said. "It's an information attack on Russia."
In 2022, the Kremlin also said there would be no mobilization. Then, on September 21, 2022, Putin ordered 300,000 reservists to war, and hundreds of thousands of Russian men fled the country in the weeks that followed.
This time, men like Dmitry aren't waiting for him to change his mind.