In early December 2024, when a deportation flight carrying expelled Russian nationals touched down on the tarmac in Moscow, Russian federal security agents were already waiting on the ground. Among the passengers was Katya – a name changed to protect her from retaliation, as she remains trapped within Russia’s borders – who would later describe the overwhelming terror of that moment: “It was unbelievably frightening. My knees were shaking with fear.”
Two years prior, Katya had fled Russia after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, submitting an application for political asylum in the United States that documented her participation in anti-war protests and her membership in a Russian opposition movement. Her application was ultimately rejected.
Today, Katya’s experience is far from unique. Just over three years after much of the Western world publicly opened its doors to Russians fleeing political repression and conscription, shifting political tides have hardened attitudes toward asylum-seeking Russians. Deportations of anti-war dissidents, army deserters and opposition activists from the U.S. and European Union are climbing rapidly, and returnees face predictable, devastating consequences: long prison sentences for anti-government speech, forced conscription to fight in Ukraine, and routine state harassment.
After clearing passport control that December day in Moscow, Katya says officers from the Federal Security Service (FSB) interrogated her for hours. When agents discovered what they deemed “incriminating information” stored on her personal phone, she said their demeanor shifted immediately. “I was very afraid that they would simply bundle me off somewhere,” she recalled. Though Katya was eventually released to stay with relatives, constant surveillance has turned her daily life into a prolonged nightmare. “I feel as if I’m in a cage, like in a zoo,” she said. “Whenever I see a police car, I feel terrified and start thinking, ‘What if they’re coming for me?’”
For male deportees on that flight, the risk was even more immediate: FSB officers distributed military conscription papers, ordering all men to report to local enlistment offices, the same hub through which tens of thousands of Russian conscripts have been deployed to the front lines in Ukraine. Another passenger and activist on the flight confirmed Katya’s account to the BBC.
Official data underscores the sharp rise in deportations. In the U.S., forced removals of Russian nationals jumped from 222 in 2023 to more than 1,200 in 2025, a surge that comes as part of broader immigration restrictions enacted during the second term of President Donald Trump. Rights activists say many of those deported are known dissidents and army deserters. One high-profile example is Leonid Melekhin, an anti-war activist who fled Russia after being arrested at a protest and sought asylum in the U.S. Melekhin had openly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin on social media, posting images of the leader alongside the message “Putin: murderer, fascist, usurper.” He was deported back to Russia in 2024, charged with “justifying terrorism,” and sentenced to six years in a maximum-security penal colony.
Andrei Pivovarov, a leading figure in Russia’s exiled Anti-War Committee, who is himself currently serving a four-year prison sentence for “operating an undesirable organization,” notes that far longer sentences are common for returnees. “We have several examples of people who got eight years in prison when they crossed the [Russian] border,” he said. The rising risk of deportation has forced his organization to update its guidance for escaping dissidents: the European Union is no longer classified as a safe haven, and activists are now advised to seek refuge further afield.
Deportations are rising sharply across the EU as well. German government figures show the country deported just seven Russian nationals in 2023, a number that jumped to more than 110 in 2025. Between 2022 and 2025, more than 21,000 Russians applied for asylum in Germany, but the approval rate plummeted from 29% in 2023 to just 6.8% in the first 11 months of 2025. Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) told the BBC that protection is only granted to applicants who can prove “an actual, well-founded fear of persecution.” Last year, Berlin suspended its entire humanitarian visa program for Russians. EU-wide data shows the overall asylum approval rate for Russian applicants fell from 23% in 2024 to roughly 17% in the first nine months of 2025.
This broader clampdown on asylum for Russian dissidents is tied to larger political shifts across the West. Growing public anxiety over high volumes of irregular migration, rising political pressure, and increasing support for far-right populist parties have pushed mainstream governments to tighten immigration rules across the board. Rights advocates say anti-war Russian dissidents, many of whom fled targeted repression, are getting swept up in this broader crackdown.
“Western governments are focused on limiting humanitarian programmes and asylum seekers,” said Anastasia Burakova, a human rights lawyer and founder of Kovcheg (Ark), an organization that helps anti-war Russians escape the country. The shift, she added, is a direct response to “public concerns and rising support for right-wing populist parties.”
Even after an asylum application is rejected, many Russian nationals are given a window to leave the receiving country voluntarily. But a growing share are now being forcibly escorted back to Russia, often via indirect routes through third countries. Multiple exiled Russian activists told the BBC that Western immigration officials regularly dismiss the risks they face, claiming they face no danger upon return and often lack basic understanding of Russia’s current repressive legal landscape.
Artyom, a former Russian soldier who deserted the army in 2022 after his commanders threatened to deploy him to Ukraine, described how his warnings fell on deaf ears. “I tried to explain that if they sent me back, I would be put in prison, or sent to war where I’d be killed,” he said. “They just didn’t believe me.” Even though Artyom provided U.S. officials with official documentation proving a criminal desertion case had been opened against him in Russia, he was still placed on a deportation flight to Moscow, routed through Egypt. “I was preparing for death,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘how can I die without it being painful?’” After being held in a military detention center in Moscow, Artyom managed to escape and is now in hiding in an unnamed third country. “Another country could investigate me better and give me asylum. Why didn’t they give me that chance? Instead they deported me specifically to Russia,” he said. “It ruined my life.”
In a statement to the BBC, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security defended its policy: “All illegal aliens receive due process. If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them.”
Rights groups warn that the risk to deported dissidents is growing because political repression inside Russia has reached unprecedented levels. Memorial, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian human rights organization, reports its official list of recognized political prisoners grew from 803 to 1,265 in 2025, marking the largest single-year increase on record. The Russian Embassy in London declined to comment on this story when contacted by the BBC.
For many other dissidents, the threat of deportation hangs over them daily. Anti-war activist Mikhail and his wife Dasha – whose names have also been changed to protect their family members still in Russia – are currently awaiting forced expulsion from Finland “any day.” Russian authorities have already blocked Mikhail’s social media accounts for spreading anti-war content that Moscow classifies as “fake information,” and police have repeatedly questioned his mother at their home. Dasha is a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religious group the Russian government has banned as an extremist organization. The couple provided Finnish authorities with extensive evidence of their targeted persecution, including a video recording of police telling Mikhail’s mother that more than 300 of his posts violate Russian law, where even a single anti-war post can carry a multi-year prison sentence.
Finnish immigration authorities have rejected the couple’s asylum application five times, ruling there is “no reasonable basis to believe” they would face serious human rights violations if returned. “We’re sitting here and someone could knock on our door at any moment, take us to the Russian border and simply hand us over to Russian officers,” Mikhail said. “We fear for our lives! We came to Finland for help, and they’re refusing us. My wife cries constantly.” Amnesty International, which is supporting the couple’s appeal, says they face a “real risk” of detention, prosecution, long imprisonment, and even torture if deported. The Finnish Immigration Service says all of its asylum decisions comply with international refugee law standards, and the approval rate for Russian applicants is in line with the EU average.
The growing threat of deportation comes as growing numbers of Russians are once again considering fleeing the country. Unconfirmed rumors of a new wave of military mobilization to reinforce Russian troop levels in Ukraine have spread widely in recent months, a move the Kremlin has repeatedly denied. The 2022 mobilization round prompted more than 700,000 Russians to flee the country in a matter of weeks, mostly to neighboring ex-Soviet states like Armenia and Georgia. Burakova says requests for help from Russians seeking to escape have increased tenfold in August 2025 compared to May of the same year. For the growing number of Russians hoping to flee repression and conscription, the core question remains unanswered: will the West offer them safe refuge, or send them back to face harm?
