Russian security services were waiting when the flight landed in Moscow in December. On board were Russians the US had deported, including activists denied political asylum. "It was unbelievably frightening.
My knees were shaking with fear," says Katya, one of the deportees. We have changed her name to protect her identity, as she remains in Russia. Katya had left Russia and claimed asylum in the US two years earlier.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many countries publicly welcomed fleeing Russians. But more than four years later, attitudes have hardened. The numbers of anti-war Russians forcibly returned from Western countries is rising, and Katya's experience highlights the potential risks they face.
US authorities rejected her application for asylum, after she said she had provided evidence that she had taken part in protests and was a member of an opposition movement. In Moscow, Katya says officers from the FSB security service handed all the male deportees military papers, requiring them to register with the local enlistment office, from where men are often sent to the war in Ukraine. Another passenger on the flight and an activist confirmed her account.
The officers interrogated her, and many others, for several hours. "At one point, they found incriminating information on my phone," says Katya, "Their faces changed in a second. I was very afraid that they would simply bundle me off somewhere." Katya was eventually released and allowed to stay with relatives.
But she says police continue to call her and visit her at home. "I feel as if I'm in a cage, like in a zoo," she says, "Whenever I see a police car, I feel terrified and start thinking, "What if they're coming for me?" Katya showed the BBC documents and photographs confirming her story, which matches accounts from other deportees. Removals from the US rose from 222 in 2023 to more than 1,200 in 2025, amid a wider increase in deportations under President Donald Trump's second term.
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