Sooo… what example does this set, exactly? Treating these people like criminals and spies plays directly into Putin’s propaganda that “The West” is broadly hostile to Russians as a people rather than merely to his regime. If their asylum claims are denied, they will simply be shipped home and then what? The guy will get drafted and given the most meat-grinder assignment and his wife will live on as a disillusioned cautionary tale. Repeat times a hundred thousand.

In fact, this has been the standard party line in pro-Kremlin Russian social media channels on Twitter and Telegram since this exodus began. None of them seem to lose any sleep over the big Western news stories of all the thousands of Russian citizens fleeing mobilization, because “eh, the cowards will come crawling back soon enough”.

We’re about to prove them right.