The Kremlin’s efforts to conscript Russians into its war against their neighbors in Ukraine are proving that a lot of the country wants nothing to do with this war. Just how deep this opposition runs is difficult to say. Polling has consistently found solid 70-80% supermajorities voicing support for the military itself, a predictable rally-around-the-flag response that our own country saw in our war against Iraq. But as Iraq also demonstrated, popular support for war often proves to be quite brittle as casualties begin to mount and the costs fall on on the public. Today, antiwar protests have once again flared up around the country while hundreds of thousands of Russians try to escape the draft across the border.

One would think that NATO member states would welcome defectors from Russia’s war with open arms, but that’s not what is happening. The Baltic nations, along with the Czech Republic and aspiring NATO member Finland, are all closing their borders to Russia. Poland has announced a bizarre “no Putin fans” entry requirement. The West’s three major credit services — Visa, Mastercard, and American Express — have all disabled the cards of Russians travelling abroad. And even when Russian refugees do manage to land on their feet outside the country, they often face remarkable hostility for the crime of being born in the wrong country.

Everyone knows perfectly well the moral case for admitting defectors from an unjust war, so I’m not going to repeat it; either you accept it or you don’t. Ben Burgis does a good job of laying it out in a post for The Daily Beast if anyone needs help.

Here I’d like to make two points. The first one is simple: NATO member states, and indeed every country in the world, have an obligation under international law to grant asylum to Russian war refugees. This was true even before Russia began its conscription campaign, first because the invasion itself was illegal and second because of the pattern of war crimes Russia has committed throughout the past year. No one should have to participate in that, not even people who voluntarily enlisted in the military. Conscription makes this case even stronger, because today some Russians will simply have no choice in the matter if they remain inside the country. There is as far as I can tell no legal ambiguity on this question; Tom Dannenbaum gets into the weeds quite thoroughly here.

The imperative for NATO member states in particular to accept Russian refugees is particularly compelling since their case against Russia has leaned so heavily upon international law. If one wants to insist that Russia’s invasion is indeed illegal (which it is), and that Russia has persistently engaged in war crimes (it has), then it follows directly that one has to give Russians the opportunity to escape the war. This is not somehow letting Russia off the hook, as advocates for collective punishment seem to suggest; this is a direct legal consequence of the case against Russia, and if we do not take this obligation seriously then it does not make sense to take the case against Russia seriously either.

The second point is related. No one can construe granting asylum to Russian military deserters as an offensive act against Russia; it is a purely defensive action. This, we are told, is the only reason NATO exists in the first place, and the only reason it was establishing a presence in Ukraine: it is supposedly a defensive military alliance.

The rationale for not admitting Russian deserters, on the other hand, is quite different. As with sanctions, the theory seems to be that if other nations can find ways to maximize civil unrest within Russia’s borders, this could end in a popular revolution against the Kremlin. Which of course is precisely the thing NATO and Ukraine were supposedly not interested in! This is the perverse cycle-of-violence logic that always marks war: today, NATO’s position is “Yes, we are doing exactly the thing you said that we would eventually do, and that you say justifies going to war against us — but we are only doing it because you went to war against us.”

It has been genuinely surreal to watch NATO states go from celebrating Soviet dissidents to putting up its own Iron Curtain against Russian war refugees. The West would very much strengthen its case by breaking this cycle of violence, ending its sanctions against Russia, admitting deserters, and pursuing the diplomatic solution that most Americans support. The moral case is obvious, international law is unambiguous, the strategic advantages are compelling, and popular support is overwhelming.