After Mikhail Benyash, a Russian lawyer, said he would be defending a group of national guardsmen who refused to join the war in Ukraine, he was inundated with calls from across the country.
“A lot of people don’t want to go and fight,” Benyash said by telephone from the southern city of Krasnodar, adding that about 1,000 people had been in touch with his team, as he pursues the first court case to officially reveal dissent inside the ranks of Russia’s security forces over the invasion.
