Author: Johnny King

The two Russian men from Chukotka arrived in a 16-foot fishing boat in the St. Lawrence Island village of Gambell in October, hoping to avoid being drafted to fight in Ukraine. They spent three months in detention, then bailed out earlier this month in Washington state, and that’s where Charlie McCann, a feature writer for The Economist’s long-form magazine “1843” caught up with them. McCann has written a detailed account of why – and how – the men escaped Russia to seek asylum and new lives in the United States. In her story, she also describes two men with lives…