Stop your cold war fear. The Mi-8 series has an escape door above cockpit, one jettison window for each pilot, two build onto the clamshell door, one enlarged window behind pilot and one on the floor panel. One can argue, it has more options and more directions than most western designs.
Plus, on contrary it rarely burn up after a crash. Passengers are usually killed because the operator almost never op for crashworthy seats on these Russian flying truck.