EUobserver
Opinion
Remember the faces of the Russian émigrés in this photo: Nikita Belov and his mum, Olga Belova.
This is what they expect to happen when they land in Moscow, after having being denied asylum by Finland: “Both of us will be arrested immediately on charges of high treason, followed by a rapid investigation, and prison sentences measured in the decades,” Nikita told EUobserver.
Other charges might include “spreading false information about the Russian military” and “terrorism”, he added.
Nikita, who is a 25-year-old engineer, and Olga, who is a 56-year-old nurse, left their lives in Russia in August 2022 after it fully invaded Ukraine in February.
They applied for asylum in Finland that September and have regularly spoken out against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regime at protests and online, as well as organising aid for Ukrainian soldiers.
But Finland rejected their asylum application in December 2024, so now they are sitting at home, awaiting deportation, which could happen, irrevocably, any day this week, or maybe later.
Some 7,300 Russians applied for asylum in the EU in 2025, but they faced rejection rates of 75 percent and 90 percent.
Germany, for one, did not recognise military conscription in Russia as a valid reason for asylum, in what appeared to be a prophylactic against a potential future scenario, in which Putin declared a general mobilisation and thousands of Russian men suddenly fled to Europe.
But still, the EU was happy to host hundreds of thousands of wealthy Russian tourists each year, who did not care about Ukraine or risk conscription, but who did spend lots of money in France, Italy, and Spain, then went home.
Asked why Finland rejected his mum and himself, despite what looked like a watertight asylum file, Nikita said he did not think it was due to xenophobia, despite the popularity of the far-right in Finland, or due to Russophobia, despite Finland’s painful history with Russia in the 1939 Winter War.
“We’ve spent a lot of time in Finland and rarely met such attitudes,” said Nikita.
It was probably a banal reason, such as lack of knowledge of Russia by the person who handled their case, or a bureaucratic snafu, he said.
But Russians coming to the EU did cause “mistrust” and have become seen as “potential spies or agents of influence”, he added.
In terms of Finnish due process, EUobserver asked the Finnish interior ministry: “Do you do any follow ups to see if they [deported Russians, such as the Belovs] are OK when they get back, or are they no longer ‘your problem’, once they get off the plane?”.
The ministry said: “We … are not able to comment on specific cases.”
We asked the Finnish foreign ministry: “Is Finland meant to be a safe haven for Russian exiles and dissidents – would you encourage other Russians to seek asylum in Finland, or rather not?”.
Its spokesman said: “Dear Andrew, we won’t be commenting at this time.”
I aim to write an article about the Belovs and the wider subject of Russian exiles in the EU this week, but Nikita and Olga might face a knock on the door and be put on a plane by the Finnish Immigration Service before it is published, so remember their faces, because if they are sent back to Russia, the free world will probably not see them again for “decades”.
Andrew Rettman is EUobserver’s foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.
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