Like many other mobilisers, Vladimir Markataev belongs to an ethnic minority group, Buryats, and comes from the impoverished Russian republic of Buryatia.
When he, like many other Buryats, received the call-up order to the Russian army last September, the choice was obvious. Already that evening, he went to Mongolia, then flew on to Seoul, where he hoped to receive asylum. But it didn’t turn out the way he had planned.
– I came here on November 12, 2022, and I’m still here, says Vladimir when SVT reaches him at the beginning of March 2023.
South Korea rejected Vladimir’s asylum application. He appealed the decision through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and pending a decision he is not allowed to leave Incheon International Airport in Seoul.
Airplane food every day
– I live in the basement, in a room that I share with ten others. But I often sleep on the benches here in the terminal, he explains.
South Korean authorities provide three meals a day to the refugees who, like Vladimir, cannot leave the airport for any reason.
– We get juice and a pastry for breakfast. Then we get an airplane target, like you get on an airplane, for lunch. And then we get juice and pastry again in the evening, says Vladimir.
Want to return to Russia
Staying, and going to war in Ukraine, was never an option for Vladimir. He is a staunch opponent of the Russian government’s policy on the matter, and he has no desire to die for it. But being forced to leave his home, family and friends is eating away at him, and he hopes to one day return to Russia.
– I still don’t understand that this is happening. I am very, very angry. And sorry, he says.
