They crossed the border looking exhausted, dragging their suitcases through the mud, but the group of young Russians fleeing the threat of conscription into the army were also grinning as they entered Kazakhstan.

“Wow the air feels easier to breathe here already,” one young person with a backpack exclaimed. The party, from the central Russian city of Kolomna, more than 1,200km from the Kazakh border, spent two nights sleeping out in the open as they joined a long queue of people and vehicles waiting to leave Russia.

They were among what Kazakhstan has said are nearly 100,000 Russians and counting who have crossed into the central Asian country since President Vladimir Putin announced a nationwide conscription drive to bolster his flagging war in Ukraine last week.