Police have apprehended an army deserter who hid in a forest in eastern Russia for more than a decade and kept his whereabouts secret from even his family, regional authorities said Monday. The 30-year-old man, whose identity was not made public, was drafted into the military in 2003 and was stationed in the remote Kamchatka peninsula for one year before fleeing the army's ranks, police said.
"He lived in Kamchatka all this time, mainly hiding in the forest," the regional branch of the interior ministry said in a statement. "He got by with odd jobs and did not attempt to get in touch with his family." The search for the deserter, who hails from the southern Russian city of Taganrog, was stopped when his family erroneously identified a dead body as that of their missing relative a few months after his disappearance, the statement said. TASS news agency reported that the deserter's family had even buried who they thought was their missing relative.