Discussion on the experiences of deported Russian asylum seekers

What we do know is that there doesn't seem to be any sort of official kind of agreement between Moscow and Washington that, oh, you go, you send these guys back to me and I'll do this for you. There's no evidence of that. Well, which brings us back to Katya, who we left being interrogated by the FSB in Moscow airport. What happened to her next? Well, she and many of the other deportees on board were taken into a special part of the airport terminal building that was closed off to other passengers. And there, one by one, they were interrogated by these security service officers for many hours. In some cases, they questioned me for a very long time, about two hours. They mocked me, made fun of me. They asked her all kinds of personal questions about her life, about why she left Russia, about why she went to the US and claimed asylum there, and about her political activity in Russia. At one point, they found incriminating information on my phone. Their faces changed in a second, but they released us. But she said the police continue to harass her. After I returned home, the police came and questioned me again. Because of the nervous stress, my hair had started falling out. Whenever I see a police car, I feel terrified and start thinking, what if they're coming for me? She's certain that her mobile phone is being monitored. She says it keeps on doing very strange things. I feel as if I'm in a cage, like in a zoo. She lives in fear in her hometown, but she's still in Russia, and that's why we have to protect her identity. How typical is Katya's experience being left in this kind of limbo? It's almost like a limbo under surveillance, it sounds like. But how typical is that? Well, there's. There's no typical scenario. It really depends on people's circumstances. So some of those who are deported are wanted. Wanted in inverted commas, criminals. So they're arrested and they're put on trial. Others are just interrogated, or there might be subsequently a criminal investigation opened against them. Some have been sent to the front line line in Ukraine to fight. Katya said that every single male deportee.