Poland returns 16-year-old asylum seeker to Russia, where he now faces criminal charges — officials deny he sought protection

A criminal case has been filed in the Pravdinsky District Court of Russia’s Kaliningrad Region against a 16-year-old boy, who stands accused of illegally crossing the border. According to a now-deleted statement put out by the court, the teenager crossed from Poland into Russia after requesting political asylum in Poland. He did so only after Polish border guards handed him back to the Russian authorities.

The news was circulated by the Russian business-focused outlet RBC, along with human-rights-focused outlet in exile Mediazona and investigative publication Important Stories.

The court’s press release says the boy intended to travel to an EU country to seek asylum. On Aug. 20, he flew from St. Petersburg to Kaliningrad, and on Aug. 24, he reached the village of Sevskoye in the Pravdinsky District before walking toward the border. He then swam across the Lava River and entered Polish territory, where he was detained by the Polish Border Guard Service before being transferred back to Russia.

The teenager now faces charges of illegally crossing a state border, an offense punishable by up to two years in prison. However, minors cannot be sentenced to imprisonment for low-severity offenses.

Lt. Col. Andrzej Juźwiak, spokesperson for the commandant of the Polish Border Guard, told The Insider that officers had identified several people who crossed the border from Russia, but none had applied for asylum:

“Since the beginning of this year, officers of the Warmian-Masurian Division of the Border Guard have identified three people who illegally crossed the border from Russia into Poland. None of them applied for international protection in Poland.”

Juźwiak did not clarify whether the figure included this specific case, nor did he clarify what happened to the detained individuals. The Insider has sent follow-up questions asking whether the 16-year-old boy was among the three and whether any of the others were handed over to Russian authorities.

At the same time, Evi Chayka, head of the human rights organization EQUAL PostOst, told The Insider that the border guards may have simply ignored the teenager’s asylum request.

“Human rights defenders are aware of situations like the one this young person seems to have faced in Poland. A person illegally enters the territory of an EU border country and is caught or voluntarily surrenders to the border guards, saying they are requesting asylum. The border guards — without recording it anywhere or, apparently, notifying their own migration authorities — simply hand the detainee back to the Russian border guards.

Of course, every case requires detailed examination. But overall, such a practice — forcibly returning a person without a hearing or trial to a country whose authorities torture and kill political prisoners in jails — raises serious questions for EU countries regarding their compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.”

Chaika advised that in such cases, individuals seeking asylum should contact human rights organizations in advance so that they can notify the migration authorities about the person’s presence in the country and ensure that the asylum request is formally registered.

A representative of the human rights organization Vyvozhuk told The Insider that pushbacks — the illegal forcible return of asylum seekers after they have crossed a state border — have become common in European countries bordering Russia and Belarus:

“Unfortunately, since 2020, border practices in European countries neighboring Russia and Belarus have generally worsened. Pushbacks at the borders are quite common if no prior arrangements have been made. For example, in 2023, Lithuania officially legalized pushbacks, granting border guards the right to turn back people crossing outside official checkpoints without accepting their asylum applications. Other neighboring countries also use this practice: some more discreetly, others, like Lithuania, openly.

In such cases — when a person decides to cross the border to seek asylum — it’s crucial to have a back office monitoring the situation and coordinating their case. This allows the team to promptly inform the migration authorities that the person is on their territory so the asylum request can be officially registered. While a person remains in the gray zone and there is no official information about them, border guards can simply push them back or, as has happened in some cases, hand them directly to Russian or Belarusian guards.

A person may not see all the possible options for leaving Russia and take such a risky step. But there are many safer ways that human rights organizations know about. In cases of political persecution, people can contact organizations such as Vyvozhuk, Rapid Unit, and inTransit; EQUAL PostOst assists LGBTQ+ individuals, while mobilized men can seek help from Shkola Prizyvnika (“Conscription School”) and Idite Lesom (“Get Lost”).”