My knees were shaking with fear," says Katya, one of the deportees.
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.
"At one point, they found incriminating information on my phone," says Katya, "Their faces changed in a second.
Activists say Russian deportees included dissidents and Russian army deserters, some of whom were imprisoned or sent to war after returning to Russia.
"We have several examples of people who got eight years in prison when they crossed the [Russian] border," says Andrei Pivovarov, from Russia's exiled opposition Anti-War Committee.
Seven were sent back in 2023, rising to more than 110 in 2025, according to German government figures.
"Protection is only granted if there is an actual, well-founded fear of persecution," Germany's migration and asylum agency, BAMF, told the BBC.
Last year, Berlin suspended its humanitarian visa programme for Russians, and across the EU, the proportion of Russian applicants granted some form of asylum protection fell from 23% in 2024 to around 17% in the first nine months of 2025, according to EU data.
Western governments are "focused on limiting humanitarian programmes and asylum seekers", says lawyer Anastasia Burakova, founder of rights group Kovcheg (Ark), which helps anti-war Russians leave the country.
Several Russian activists in exile told the BBC that immigration officials had told them they faced "no danger" in Russia, and that officials often lacked an adequate understanding of the risks that activists face.
"I tried to explain that if they sent me back, I would be put in prison, or sent to war where I'd be killed," explains former soldier Artyom, who deserted from the Russian Army in 2022 after officers threatened to send him to Ukraine.
The US Department of Homeland Security told the BBC: "All illegal aliens receive due process.
The asylum clampdown comes as repression inside Russia has reached "an unprecedented level", according to Nobel Prize-winning Russian human rights group Memorial.
Anti-war activist Mikhail says he and his wife Dasha are awaiting deportation from Finland "any day".
"We're sitting here and someone could knock on our door at any moment, take us to the Russian border and simply hand us over to Russian officers," says Mikhail.
Amnesty International, which is supporting the couple, says they could face a "real risk" of detention, prosecution, imprisonment and torture if returned.
The Finnish Immigration Service said all asylum decisions were based on international refugee law standards, and the share of Russian citizens receiving asylum was in line with EU averages.
Anastasia Burakova's organisation says requests for help from Russians wanting to leave rose tenfold in August compared with May.