A military pilot who fled Russia was allowed to live in Lithuania

Russian Air Force pilot Dmitry Myshov, who refused to fight in Ukraine and fled to Lithuania, has been allowed to live in the country pending consideration of his asylum application. This was reported by the Delfi agency.

The relevant decision of the Migration Department of Lithuania was received by the State Border Protection Service on Monday evening. Myshov was admitted to Lithuania, he is allowed to settle in the place of his choice on the territory of the country, representative of the Lithuanian border service Gedryus Myshutis told the agency.

According to the Lithuanian authorities, Myshov illegally entered Lithuania not through the external, but through the internal border of the EU. He himself claimed in an interview with the BBC that he got to Lithuania at the end of May, crossing the border through the forest with the help of anti-Putinist retired officers. At the beginning of June, the Russian officer surrendered to the Lithuanian migration authorities.

26-year-old Lieutenant Myshov is a graduate of the Syzran Higher Military Aviation School, he served in the 15th Army Aviation Brigade, which took part in the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the first day of the war. A month before the invasion in 2022, the pilot submitted a report on his dismissal from the armed forces. His service in the army was supposed to end in October. However, after the announcement of mobilization in Russia, his dismissal was canceled. In January, the pilot was ordered to go to the front. Neither the request to challenge the decision in court, nor the fact that he opened his veins helped. Then the lieutenant decided to hide abroad.

Once in Lithuania, Myshov gave an interview to the BBC, in which he told how and why he tried to resign from the army. He stated that he considers the war in Ukraine to be a crime committed in order to preserve the power of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The army, in his opinion, was completely unprepared for war and is still not interested in it. “I am a soldier, I must protect my country from aggression. I must not participate, I must not be an accomplice in a crime,” says the officer. According to him, the military does not believe the Kremlin’s propaganda and does not believe that the Nazis rule Ukraine or that Kyiv was preparing an attack.