A Russian man fleeing Putin's draft was stuck for 5 months in a South Korean airport, terrified of being sent to war

• A Russian man fleeing the Ukraine war spent almost five months stuck in an airport.
• The man flew to South Korea to avoid compulsory enlistment, but couldn't leave the terminal.
• He lived there, seeking refugee status. It has yet to be granted, but he was recently moved elsewhere.

A Russian man spent almost five months in a South Korean airport after fleeing its forced enlistment drive.

The man, identified as Dmitry, fled Russia in October last year, just after Russia announced the drafting of 300,000 troops to fight in Ukraine, CNN reported.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians left the country in response, including Dmitry, who got as far as Incheon International Airport, near Seoul — but then got stuck.

He was one of five Russians who applied for refugee status on reaching South Korea, but had their applications rejected. Rather than return to Russia, they stayed in the airport and fought their case.

Their predicament resembles the 2004 movie "The Terminal," in which Tom Hanks' character is stranded at JFK for nine months.

Dmitry and one of the men were able to leave the airport this week, and were taken to a government immigration facility as they ask the courts there to recognize them as refugees, CNN reported.

There, Dmitry has a 6 p.m. curfew and has to get approval to leave the facility. But he told CNN that it's better than at the airport.

"The conditions here are very good, they feed very well, there is a washing machine, there is an iron, there is hot water, everywhere is clean and everything treats you very well," he said.

He told CNN he was reluctant to return to Russia — where the mobilization has formally been ended — in case he is punished. Six of his friends died in Ukraine, he said.

CNN said Dmitry left his wife and his seven-year-old son behind when fleeing the draft.

Another one of the men, Vladimir Maraktaev, told The Washington Post in January that he fled Russia on the day he was drafted: September 24.

He said: "I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to die myself, as well. But I feel this conflict is extremely political."

"It's an imperialistic war in my opinion, conquering a neighboring brotherly nation."

South Korea has a low acceptance rate for refugees, Insider's Cheryl Teh previous reported.

And the country doesn't see avoiding the military draft as a valid reason to be able to seek asylum, according to the Post. It has its own mandatory military service for young men.

Dmitry had originally wanted to escape to Kazakhstan, but then heard that the country was deporting Russians, CNN reported.

He said that South Korea was then the only democratic country he could fly to. Many countries closed their airspaces to planes from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.