ISTANBUL, Sept 24 (AP): Military-aged men fled Russia in droves Friday, filling planes and causing traffic jams at border crossings to avoid being rounded up to fight in Ukraine following the Kremlin's partial military mobilization.
Queues stretching for 10 kilometers (6 miles) formed on a road leading to the southern border with Georgia, according to Yandex Maps, a Russian online map service.
The lines of cars were so long at the border with Kazakhstan that some people abandoned their vehicles and proceeded on foot - just as some Ukrainians did after Russia invaded their country on Feb. 24.
Meanwhile, dozens of flights out of Russia - with tickets sold at sky-high prices - carried men to international destinations such as Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Serbia, where Russians don't need visas.
Among those who reached Turkey was a 41-year-old who landed in Istanbul with a suitcase and a backpack and plans to start a new life in Israel.
"I'm against this war, and I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a murderer. I'm not going to kill people," said the man, who identified himself only as Yevgeny to avoid potential retribution against his family left behind in Russia.
He referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "war criminal."
Yevgeny decided to flee after Putin announced a partial military call-up on Wednesday. The total number of reservists involved could be as high as 300,000.
Some Russian men also fled to neighboring Belarus, Russia's close ally. But that carried risk.
The Nasha Niva newspaper, one of the oldest independent newspapers in Belarus, reported that Belarusian security services were ordered to track down Russians fleeing from the draft, find them in hotels and rented apartments and report them to Russian authorities.
The exodus unfolded as a Kremlin-orchestrated referendum got underway seeking to make occupied regions of Ukraine part of Russia. Kyiv and the West condemned it as a rigged election whose result was preordained by Moscow.
German government officials voiced a desire to help Russian men deserting military service, and they called for a European s
UN rights experts
present evidence of
war crimes in Ukraine
A team of experts commissioned by the U.N.'s top human rights body to look into rights violations in Ukraine said Friday its initial investigation turned up evidence of war crimes in the country following Russia's invasion nearly seven months ago.
The experts from the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, mandated by Human Rights Council earlier this year, have so far focused on four regions - Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sumy.
Presenting their most extensive findings so far, they cited testimonies by former detainees of beatings, electric shocks and forced nudity in Russian detention facilities, and expressed grave concerns about executions the team was working to document in the four regions.
"Based on the evidence gathered by the commission, it has concluded that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine," Erik Mose, the commission's chairman, told the Human Rights Council.
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