A Crimean man who feared being conscripted to fight by Ukraine has been given refugee status in New Zealand.
He arrived here 25 years ago, and jumped ship before his ship sailed. He remained after his first application for asylum was rejected in 2003.
The 50-year-old speaks only Russian and considers himself Russian but is classed as a Ukrainian. He was concerned he would be forced to fight against his own people if he returned to Crimea to get a Russian passport.
“He is aggrieved that decisions were taken which has meant that he had been given Ukrainian nationality and not Russian nationality upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union,” the tribunal said in its decision.
“If conscripted again into the Ukrainian army, [he] would regard himself as being compelled to fight against his own kind, which he does not want to do … the appellant does not want to kill people. He would, however, take up arms to defend his homeland and his family against any invasion by Ukrainian forces of Sevastopol.”
The immigration and protection tribunal said his journey home would be fraught with danger. As someone who had been in New Zealand since 2000, he had no experience of the war, or drone and missile attacks, and would be likely to suffer psychological harms if he returned there.
“More broadly, the appellants right to an adequate standard of living will be adversely impacted on an ongoing basis. He will struggle to find employment. Some degree of discrimination against him as an ethnic Russian who cannot speak the Ukrainian language is to be expected in the circumstances should he seek casual work.
“He will struggle to establish himself. He only has a cousin in Kyiv, but otherwise no support available to him in the government controlled areas.”
The tribunal ruled that his intersecting race and nationality put him at risk of persecution.
rnz.co.nz
