This was Russia today Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Howdy, folks. Don’t miss today’s news digest. In the missive below, we look at how America’s new immigration crackdown is affecting Russian dissidents. Let us know if you’re enjoying the newsletter’s new format, why don’t you.
The U.S. immigration crackdown means more Russian nationals who thought they’d escaped Putin are now headed back against their will
The United States is reportedly poised to return another political dissident to Russia, where he faces immediate arrest and imprisonment. According to the independent news outlet People of Baikal, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents recently detained a Russian activist, Alexander Bolokhoev, who has lived in the United States since April 2022, working as a truck driver while awaiting asylum. Bolokhoev is a member of “Tusgaar Buryaad — Mongolia,” a U.S.-based independence movement of ethnic Buryats that denounces Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In its literature, the group advocates separatism among non-Russian peoples within the Russian Federation and appeals specifically to Japan for help in “casting off Russia’s yoke.” The Russian authorities banned the movement as a “terrorist and extremist” organization in 2023.
The movement’s cofounder, former opera singer Marina Khankhalaeva, warns that Bolokhoev could face torture or even death for his activism if deported to Russia. Khankhalaeva and her group gained notoriety in Russia after she addressed the European Parliament in January 2023, speaking about historical atrocities against Buryats and calling for Russia’s “decolonization.” Khankhalaeva’s remarks prompted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to complain that the West was elevating indigenous activists to conceal its own history of discrimination and colonialism.
⁂ Oh, but he’s not the only one ⁂
Bolokhoev wouldn’t be the first dissident deported to face the Putin regime. In July 2025, the U.S. deported Perm-based activist Leonid Melekhin, despite an active warrant for his arrest back home. Melekhin entered the United States through Mexico and spent months in immigration detention before his asylum request was denied. When he returned to Russia, the authorities promptly arrested him and charged him with “justifying terrorism” in connection with his volunteer work for the late opposition figure Alexey Navalny.
In September 2025, The New York Times published a detailed report about the deportation of Artyom Vovchenko, a Russian deserter who was denied U.S. asylum and sent to Egypt, where local police beat him and then forced him onto a Moscow-bound plane. Police apprehended Vovchenko at the airport, and his whereabouts have remained unknown ever since.
Earlier this month, Dmitry Valuev, head of Russian America for Democracy in Russia, told Deutsche Welle that roughly a thousand Russian citizens may be held in U.S. immigration detention centers, adding that reports of deportations often surface only after a delay. One of the key changes in ICE enforcement, said Valuev, is that it’s now far less common for deportees to “get lost” during layovers en route to Russia.
Former political prisoner Mikhail Savostin warned DW that American judges ruling on asylum requests have demonstrated an exceptionally poor grasp of political repression in Russia. Indeed, Judge Jacob D. Bashore (who denied 89 percent of asylum claims from 2019 to 2024) reportedly dismissed Artyom Vovchenko’s Russian army desertion, reasoning, “Who cares? You got to serve, you got to serve,” according to Vovchenko’s lawyer.
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Today’s reporting from Meduza
🗞️ Navalny’s ‘terrorism,’ a women’s advocacy group dies, and Trump denies WSJ report: Meduza breaks down today’s biggest Russia-related news stories, October 22, 2025
Today, we focused on the expansion of terrorism charges against Russia’s dissidents and setbacks for women’s rights and music freedom. Europe is currently hosting dueling nuclear readiness drills, while Ukraine negotiates for greater flexibility on a still-theoretical loan. Meanwhile, Trump denies a WSJ report about U.S. assistance in long-range strikes inside Russia.
🕊️ Tumbling into a new Cold War: WSJ reporter Drew Hinshaw’s new book offers the inside scoop on Putin’s historic prisoner swap with the West
In August 2024, the West traded hackers, spies, and an FSB assassin for 16 prisoners, including WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich and opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza. WSJ reporters Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson detail the secret swap — and the dawn of “hostage diplomacy” — in their 2025 book Swap: A Secret History of the New Cold War.
🕊️ From summit to no summit: How Trump’s planned meeting with Putin on European soil unraveled within days
A day before meeting Zelensky, Trump spoke by phone with Putin and announced plans for a summit in Hungary — a move that stunned European leaders, given Budapest’s obligation to arrest Putin under an ICC warrant. Within days, amid logistical hurdles and diplomatic backlash, the White House walked it back, saying no meeting was planned “in the immediate future.”
‘Dragging out this war’: Zelensky calls for ‘critical consequences’ after Russia hits kindergarten and energy infrastructure in massive overnight attack on Ukraine
Russia launched overnight missile and drone strikes across Ukraine, killing civilians and damaging infrastructure in cities including Kyiv, Odesa, and Chernihiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attacks, urging stronger sanctions, long-range weapons, and coordinated international pressure to impose “critical consequences” on Moscow.
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