ISTANBUL (AP) — Military-aged men fled Russia in droves Friday, filling planes and causing traffic jams at border crossings to avoid being rounded up to fight in Ukraine following the Kremlin's partial military mobilization.
Queues stretching for 10 kilometers (6 miles) formed on a road leading to the southern border with Georgia, according to Yandex Maps, a Russian online map service.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision this week to mobilize several hundred thousand reservists has spurred a fresh exodus over the country's borders.
The lines of cars were so long at the border with Kazakhstan that some people abandoned their vehicles and proceeded on foot — just as some Ukrainians did after Russia invaded their country on Feb. 24.
Meanwhile, dozens of flights out of Russia — with tickets sold at sky-high prices — carried men to international destinations such as Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Serbia, where Russians don't need visas.
Among those who reached Turkey was a 41-year-old who landed in Istanbul with a suitcase and a backpack and plans to start a new life in Israel.
"I'm against this war, and I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a murderer. I'm not going to kill people," said the man, who identified himself only as Yevgeny to avoid potential retribution against his family left behind in Russia.
He referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "war criminal."
Read the full story here:
MORE RUSSIA-UKRAINE DEVELOPMENTS
***
***
PHOTOS FROM THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR
Warning: Some of the images in this gallery are graphic
Photos: 6 months of war in Ukraine
FILE - Ukrainian emergency employees and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from the maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. A Russian attack has severely damaged the maternity hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials say. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
FILE - The body of a serviceman is coated in snow next to a destroyed Russian military multiple rocket launcher vehicle on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. Russian troops bore down on Ukraine's capital Friday, with gunfire and explosions resonating ever closer to the government quarter, in an invasion of a democratic country that has fueled fears of wider war in Europe and triggered worldwide efforts to make Russia stop. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)
FILE - Natali Sevriukova reacts next to her house following a rocket attack the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
FILE - Oleksandr Konovalov, an ambulance paramedic, performs CPR on a girl injured by the shelling in a residential area as her father sits, left, after arriving at the city hospital of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. The girl did not survive. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
FILE - An armored personnel carrier burns amid damaged and abandoned Russian light utility vehicles after fighting in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. The city authorities said that Ukrainian forces engaged in fighting with Russian troops that entered the country's second-largest city on Sunday. (AP Photo/Marienko Andrew, File)
FILE - Ukrainian volunteers tear cloth into strips to make camouflage nets in Lviv, western Ukraine, Feb. 28, 2022. Volunteerism has seized the city. Until the missiles struck within walking distance of the cathedrals and cafes downtown on Friday, March 18, Ukraine's cultural capital was a city that could feel distant from the war. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)
FILE - A man carries a baby as people struggle on stairways after a last minute change of the departure platform for a Lviv bound train in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. Explosions and gunfire that have disrupted life since the invasion began last week appeared to subside around Kyiv overnight, as Ukrainian and Russian delegations met Monday on Ukraine's border with Belarus. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)
FILE - A member of the Ukrainian Emergency Service looks at the City Hall building in the central square following shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Russian strikes pounded the central square in Ukraine's second-largest city and other civilian sites Tuesday in what the country's president condemned as blatant campaign of terror by Moscow. (AP Photo/Pavel Dorogoy, File)
FILE - The children of medical workers warm themselves in a blanket as they wait for their relatives in a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
FILE - Aleksander, 41, presses his palms against the window as he says goodbye to his daughter Anna, 5, on a train to Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, Friday, March 4. 2022. Aleksander has to stay behind to fight in the war while his family leaves the country to seek refuge in a neighbouring country. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
FILE - Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee crossing the Irpin river in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
FILE - An elderly lady sit in a wheelchair after being evacuated from Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. Demands for ways to safety evacuate civilians have surged along with intensifying shelling by Russian forces, who have made significant advances in southern Ukraine but stalled in some other regions. Efforts to put in place cease-fires along humanitarian corridors have repeatedly failed amid Russian shelling.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)
FILE - Dead bodies are placed into a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022 as people cannot bury their dead because of the heavy shelling by Russian forces. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
FILE - An explosion is seen in an apartment building after Russian's army tank fires in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
FILE - A picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin hangs at a target practice range in Lviv in western Ukraine, Thursday, March 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)
FILE - Irina Zubchenko walks with her dog Max amid the destruction caused after a bombing in a shopping in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, March 21, 2022. (AP Photo/ (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
FILE - An injured dog is seen at the ADA foundation centre in Przemysl, southeastern Poland, Monday, March 28, 2022. Amid the exodus of more than 2.2 million Ukrainian refugees to Poland who fled the Russian invasion are the pet lovers who could not leave their animals behind. The evacuation of the animals was dangerous but was made possible due to the efforts and cooperation of several animal rights groups and Ukrainian refugees. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File)
FILE - A neighbour walks on the debris of a burning house, destroyed after a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
FILE - A man rides his bike past flames and smoke rising from a fire following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
FILE - The hand of a corpse buried along with other bodies is seen in a mass grave in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
FILE - Women stand in their robes outside after leaving their building to get a better look at smoke rising after Russian attacks in Odesa, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
FILE - A lifeless body of a man with his hands tied behind his back lies on the pavement in Bucha, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)
FILE - Four bodies lie in a mass grave, including the village mayor and her family, in Motyzhyn close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 4, 2022, after Russian army were pushed out from the area by Ukrainian forces. The bodies appeared to have been shot at close range, with the mayor's husband with hands behind his back, with a piece of rope nearby, and a piece of plastic wrapped around his eyes like a blindfold. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)
FILE - Ira Gavriluk holds her cat as she walks next to the bodies of her husband, brother, and another man, who were killed outside her home in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 4, 2022. Russia is facing a fresh wave of condemnation after evidence emerged of what appeared to be deliberate killings of civilians in Ukraine. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
FILE - A resident looks for belongings in the ruins of an apartment building destroyed during fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in Borodyanka, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - The remains of victoms and the fragments of a Russian military helicopter can be seen near Makariv close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
FILE - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in his office in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 9, 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he's committed to pressing for peace despite Russian attacks on civilians that have stunned the world. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
FILE - Volunteers load on a truck corpses of civilians killed in Bucha to be taken to a morgue for investigation, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
FILE - A woman reacts next to the body of a 15-year-old boy killed during a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, April 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
FILE - Nadiya Trubchaninova, 70, cries while holding the coffin of her son Vadym, 48, who was killed by Russian soldiers last March 30 in Bucha, during his funeral in the cemetery of Mykulychi, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 16, 2022. After nine days since the discovery of Vadym's corpse, finally Nadiya could have a proper funeral for him. This is not where Nadiya Trubchaninova thought she would find herself at 70 years of age, hitchhiking daily from her village to the shattered town of Bucha trying to bring her son's body home for burial. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
FILE - An injured man smokes following a Russian bombing of a factory in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine, on Tuesday, April 19, 2022, killing at least one person and injuring three others. Russian forces attacked along a broad front in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday as part of a full-scale ground offensive to take control of the country's eastern industrial heartland in what Ukrainian officials called a "new phase of the war." (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)
FILE - A car is parked under a tree in partially abandoned Chernobyl town, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
FILE - The body of an unidentified man in seen on a road barrier near a village recently retaken by Ukrainian forces in the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
FILE - Anna Shevchenko, 35, waters the few flowers that survived in the garden of her home in Irpin, near Kyiv, on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. The house, built by Shevchenko's grandparents, was nearly completely destroyed by bombing in late March during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In her beloved flowerbed, some roses, lilies, peonies and daffodils survived. "It is new life. So I tried to save my flowers," she said. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
FILE - Oksana Balandina, 23, receives medical assistance by a doctor who cleans her wounds at a public hospital in Lviv, Ukraine Saturday, May 14, 2022. Oksana lost both legs and 4 fingers on her left arm when a shell sticking in the ground near her house exploded on March 27. "There was explosion. Just after that I felt my legs like falling into emptiness. I was trying to look around and saw that there were no legs anymore - only bones, flesh and blood". (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
FILE - Iuliia Loseva cries over the coffin of her husband Volodymyr Losev, 38, during his funeral at a cemetery in Zorya Truda, Odesa region, Ukraine, Monday, May 16, 2022. Volodymyr Losev, a Ukrainian volunteer soldier, was killed on May 7 when the military vehicle he was driving ran over a mine in eastern Ukraine. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
FILE - Ukrainian servicemen sit in a bus after they were evacuated from the besieged Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant, near a remand prison in Olyonivka, in territory under the government of the Donetsk People's Republic, eastern Ukraine, Tuesday, May 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov, File)
FILE - Nila Zelinska holds a doll belonging to her granddaughter, she was able to find in her destroyed house in Potashnya outskirts Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 31, 2022. Zelinska just returned to her home town after escaping war to find out she is homeless. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)
FILE - Two national guard soldiers drink a shot to honor the memory of two late soldiers in Kharkiv cemetery, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, May 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)
FILE - Elena Holovko sits among debris outside her house damaged after a missile strike in Druzhkivka, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, June 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)
FILE - A woman brandishes the Ukrainian flag on top of a destroyed Russian tank in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, June 10, 2022. With war raging on fronts to the east and south, the summer of 2022 is proving bitter for the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The sun shines but sadness and grim determination reign.(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)
FILE A Russian soldier inspects a labyrinth of the Metallurgical Combine Azovstal, in Mariupol, on the territory which is under the Government of the Donetsk People's Republic control, eastern Ukraine, Monday, June 13, 2022. The plant was almost completely destroyed during the siege of Mariupol. This photo was taken during a trip organized by the Russian Ministry of Defense. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Sixty-six-year-old Volodymyr, injured from a Russian bombardment, sits on a chair in his damaged apartment, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
FILE - Relatives and friends attend the funeral ceremony for Liza, 4-year-old girl killed by Russian attack, in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, Sunday, July 17, 2022. Wearing a blue denim jacket with flowers, Liza was among 23 people killed, including two boys aged 7 and 8, in Thursday's missile strike in Vinnytsia. Her mother, Iryna Dmytrieva, was among the scores injured. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)
Medic volunteer Nataliia Voronkova, top right, gives a medical tactical training session to soldiers in a bomb shelter as air raid sirens go off, in Dobropillia, eastern Ukraine, Friday, July 22, 2022. Voronkova has dedicated her life to aid distribution and tactical medical training for soldiers and paramedics, working on front line of the Donetsk region since the war began in 2014. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
FILE - The lights of a police vehicle illuminate the side of a road, as servicemen arrive to check damages in the aftermath of a car accident between a civilian and soldier, after curfew hours in Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, July 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File)
FILE - EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A burned out body of Ukrainian military prisoner is seen in destroyed barrack at a prison in Olenivka, in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces, eastern Ukraine, Friday, July 29, 2022. Russia and Ukraine accused each other Friday of shelling the prison in Olenivka in a separatist region of eastern Ukraine, an attack that reportedly killed dozens of Ukrainian military prisoners who were captured after the fall of a southern port city of Mariupol in May. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Maria and Oleh Berest embrace while posing for their photographer by a fountain on their wedding day as sandbags fortify the opera house in Odesa, Ukraine, Friday, July 29, 2022. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
FILE - A wheat field burns after Russian shelling a few kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border in the Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Friday, July 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
FILE - Nelia Fedorova, left, is embraced by her daughter, Yelyzaveta Gavenko, 11, the day after they were wounded in a rocket attack which also killed Fedorova's husband, Oleksii, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. The family had previously evacuated to central Ukraine but returned to their home at the end of June after Nelia and Oleksii had trouble finding work. The strike killed three people and wounded 13 others, according to the mayor. The attack came less than a day after 11 other rockets were fired at the city as Russia's invasion continues. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
