Yevgeny Korobov says he deserted to avoid fighting in Ukraine; Kazakhstan rejected his asylum bid

Yevgeny Korobov, a former officer in Russia’s 15th motorized rifle brigade, said he deserted to avoid fighting in Ukraine and later sought asylum in Kazakhstan, which authorities rejected in September 2025.

"I don't want to fight in this war," Korobov said in the interview. He said he was misled about the mission on 02/24/2022 and never believed the Kremlin would launch a full-scale invasion. "There's nothing wrong with defending Russia on its own soil if it's attacked, but that didn't happen," he said.

Korobov described traveling in convoys through towns where civilians carried on their daily lives and said soldiers were sometimes greeted by residents. He recounted an exchange with a bicyclist who told the convoy to go home and said Korobov responded that critics should take their complaints to Moscow.

According to the transcript, Korobov served in the brigade that was deployed near Kyiv until March 2022. The report notes that Ukrainian prosecutors later accused some members of the unit of war crimes; Korobov said he heard about those allegations but did not witness any crimes himself.

Korobov said he saw little option for leaving the combat zone except by injury or death. "The only way out of there is either by dying or being wounded," he said. He later told the interviewer that during a combat mission he shot himself in the leg to escape the fighting. "The blood started pouring out, hot blood. My whole boot was full of it," he said.

While hospitalized in Russia, the transcript says Kremlin-backed media portrayed him as a hero who had saved his unit under fire. Korobov said he already knew then that he would not return to the front and began planning his departure from Russia.

In January 2023 Korobov moved to Astana and applied for asylum, the narrator reports. In September 2025 Kazakh authorities formally rejected his request, saying there was no reason to believe he would face persecution in Russia. Human rights activists in Kazakhstan are now helping him take his case to court, the transcript states.

An advocate quoted in the report described Korobov's desertion as politically motivated and not an act of cowardice. "We have clear and unequivocal evidence that his desertion was not cowardice. It was politically motivated," the advocate said.

The transcript notes Korobov is wanted in Russia for desertion and that, under Russian criminal law, he could face up to 15 years in prison for desertion and for speaking against the war.

The case remains in litigation in Kazakhstan; human rights activists are assisting his appeal. The transcript does not provide the name of the court or the next scheduled hearing date.