Broken by American detention. Russian authorities arrest Leonid Melekhin after failed asylum attempt and “self‑deportation” from the U.S.

A court in the Russian city of Perm has arrested Leonid Melekhin, a businessman and activist who returned to Russia after his U.S. asylum bid was denied. Melekhin had traveled through Mexico to the United States in 2024 and spent ten months in immigration detention before being rejected in July 2025. His lawyer claims he flew back voluntarily, despite knowing he faced criminal charges. Relatives say he was broken by his imprisonment. He now faces “terrorism” charges over a photo he shared of a poster calling for Vladimir Putin to be hanged.

The family and friends of 34-year-old activist Leonid Melekhin learned from the news that on July 25, the Leninsky District Court of Perm, a city close to the Ural Mountains in Russia, had ordered him to be held in pre-trial detention.

On the day of Melekhin’s arrest, men identifying themselves as FSB officers searched the Perm apartment where his wife and two children live, a source close to the family told Mediazona on condition of anonymity. “They confiscated her phone but later returned it,” the source said. “They allowed her to call Leonid. And what did he say... That ‘everything is fine’.”

On July 25, a local publication Properm reported Melekhin’s arrest, stating that U.S. authorities had denied him political asylum, after which he was deported to Russia and arrested upon arrival. The publication claimed that “all this time, he was wanted by the Russian authorities for cooperating with Navalny’s headquarters.”

Mediazona discovered that Melekhin was added to the wanted list no later than June 7, 2024. On October 10 of the same year, he was included in the official register of “extremists and terrorists”. An asterisk next to his name on that list indicates that he is being prosecuted under one of the “terrorism” articles of the Russian Criminal Code.

“It was his initiative.” The lawyer’s version

Melekhin has been remanded in custody for two months on charges of public justification of terrorism, the Leninsky District Court of Perm told Mediazona.

Valery Kuznetsov, the state-appointed lawyer representing Melekhin, says his client has pleaded guilty. Kuznetsov declined to specify the exact content of the charges or when the criminal case was opened.

The lawyer insists that after his U.S. asylum application was rejected, Melekhin, who was in an immigration prison, “asked to be sent back” to Russia himself, returning to his homeland via “self-deportation.”

“Apparently, he saw no prospect of getting into the U.S. and living there,” Kuznetsov muses. “It was his own initiative, with his consent, his wish.”

What is “self-deportation”?

With Donald Trump’s return to the White House, a sweeping campaign to restrict immigration and deport violators has been launched.

Efforts to control migration at the southern border had already continued under President Joe Biden. Amid record-high border crossings, authorities limited access to asylum by freezing new applications and implementing designated “windows” for legal entry through the CBP One mobile app.

In spring 2025, the Trump administration overhauled the app, removing the asylum request feature and instead offering assistance with “voluntary self-deportation.” The app was renamed CBP Home.

According to the official Department of Homeland Security website: “The Department of Homeland Security has announced a historic opportunity for illegal aliens to receive cost-free travel, forgiveness of any failure to depart fines, and a $1,000 exit bonus to facilitate travel back to their home country or another country where they have lawful status through the CBP Home Mobile App.”

Migrants already detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may apply for “voluntary departure”, a legally recognized process authorized by an immigration judge. Unlike “self-deportation”, it does not carry a future ban on entering the U.S. and can be requested either before or after a court-ordered removal. In the latter case, a departure date is set within 60 days.

Melekhin knew that a criminal case had been opened against him in Russia, his lawyer claims.

“Yes, he knew and… how to put it… he did not rule out the possibility of what measures would be taken against him. But he made the decision nonetheless,” says Kuznetsov.

According to Mediazona’s sources who requested anonymity, the lawyer is advising Melekhin’s relatives not to speak to journalists and to “avoid making external fuss.” Leonid has no contact with his family.

“That prison broke him,” a source tells Mediazona. “If it weren’t for that prison, he wouldn’t have made such a decision.”

Who is Leonid Melekhin?

Melekhin flew to Mexico in late 2023, says Yuri Bobrov, a former Perm activist who about immigration to the U.S. Bobrov believes that Melekhin was in fact deported and is certain he would not have returned to Russia voluntarily.

After arriving in Mexico, Leonid applied for political asylum in the U.S. using the CBP One app. His interview at a designated point of entry was scheduled for mid-August 2024; Melekhin had waited more than six months in the queue to cross the border.

Melekhin crossed the border in Calexico, Imperial County, CA, on August 16, 2024, Bobrov continues. The man then spent the first few months in an immigration centre in San Diego.

The two men, both from Perm, corresponded but had never met in person. Bobrov occasionally published Melekhin’s notes about life in the immigration prison on his channel. In October 2024, for example, Leonid wrote about becoming a volunteer cleaner:

“‘We get paid a symbolic $1 a day for our work, regardless of whether it’s one or two shifts,’ he wrote. ‘And after 30 days of work, they’re supposed to give us a certificate that can be exchanged for some ‘perks’ on the outside. And, in theory, I’ll be able to show it off in court. But I’m not really thinking about these benefits. I’m already confident in my case—I should win and get political asylum on November 19.’ ”

However, Melekhin lost his case—he didn’t have a lawyer, says Bobrov. In early 2025, he was transferred to the San Luis immigration prison in Arizona, known for its harsh conditions.

“They transferred about forty people there, I think,” Yuri Bobrov recalls. “And we lost contact with many of the [Russians]. He was there for a long time, and we realised we needed to file an appeal, you know, with a lawyer’s help.” Bobrov isn’t sure if the lawyer helped Melekhin; he says Leonid only spoke with her once. “The denial was issued on June 11 without a hearing,” Bobrov says.

According to Bobrov, he contacted Melekhin “around the 19th [July],” “but he replied in a defeated tone that he saw no point in fighting anymore.”

In one of his posts, Bobrov calls Leonid Melekhin “one of Perm’s regular activists, a participant in street protests, and an [election] observer.” Melekhin’s family and friends maintain that he was not an active opposition figure and did not “cooperate with Navalny’s headquarters,” as claimed by Properm and several Telegram channels.

“He had an incomplete higher education, something like mechanical engineering, I think,” says a relative of Melekhin. “He dropped out in his final year because of his business, a company that sold and manufactured road barriers. He worked all over Russia and the CIS.”

In 2017, Alexei Navalny’s campaign office opened in Perm, and a few months later the politician met with his supporters as part of his campaign for the upcoming presidential election. Leonid Melekhin was at that meeting, his relative says.

“He had a way of imitating Navalny: his gestures, his facial expressions,” she says. “You know, when you have an idol, you start to emulate them. Like we all do, I suppose.”

“Putin murderer fascist usurper.” The reason for the criminal case

Police had never filed any administrative protocols against Melekhin while he was in Russia, an acquaintance of the activist says. Mediazona also found no record of any cases against him in Russian court databases.

In June 2023, Melekhin was detained at a solo picket with a sign that read “Freedom for Navalny,” reported the Telegram channel “Perm 36.6. Against the War”.

“He was detained, taken to the Leninsky police station, gave a statement, and was released,” the post said.

On the day Melekhin crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, Yuri Bobrov wrote on his Telegram channel (preserving the original spelling and punctuation): “[Melekhin] wrote to me: ‘hey, just before I left, I couldn’t resist, and I hung putin on the Kommunalny Bridge in Perm. Post the pic somewhere, it’d be a shame if not many people saw it.’ ”

The post included two photos: one is a selfie of Leonid Melekhin at the border crossing, and the other shows a poster on a rope, hanging from a bridge.

“Putin V.V. murderer fascist usurper” is written in red letters on a yellow background, with a photo of Vladimir Putin taped to the top. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing. A fascist to the gallows,” is written below.

An anonymous source close to Melekhin told Mediazona that this very post on Yuri Bobrov’s Telegram channel was the basis for the charge of “justifying terrorism”. Bobrov says he is unaware of the details of the case.

“Yuri Bobrov posted the compromising images of Leonid,” the source said. “That’s what triggered the investigation and led to the case being opened. The lawyer confirmed this was the foundation of the charge—though, oddly, instead of calling it a ‘poster,’ he referred to it as a ‘doll with inscriptions.’ ”

A hundred people in a cell. Increased deportations from the U.S.

In January 2025, U.S. authorities deported Yevgeny Mashinin, a 27-year-old activist from Kovrov in the Vladimir region, back to Russia. In 2022, Moscow’s Dorogomilovsky District Court had fined Mashinin for participating in an anti-war rally in Moscow on March 6, 2022. In 2023, the European Court of Human Rights awarded the activist 5,000 euros in compensation for the detentions, fines, and arrests he had received in Russia for participating in Alexei Navalny’s rallies in Moscow in 2017 and 2021.

By the time of his deportation, Mashinin, who had left Russia in September 2023, had spent over a year in immigration prisons in Texas, most of it at the South Texas detention facility.

“There were a hundred of us in a cell,” Mashinin recalls in a conversation with Mediazona. “Everything there was awful. The worst thing for me was that it was impossible to sleep: people were shouting and crowing at night. And the food was terrible, of course.”

On June 25, 2024, Mashinin lost his court case, and in December he was deported to Russia at the expense of the U.S.: he was flown under escort from San Antonio to New York, and from there to Qatar.

“In Qatar, they sent me to a waiting area in the airport, and I don’t think anyone was even watching me,” Mashinin recalls. “There was some officer there: he was sitting there, but he didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me. They took my passport and gave it to a flight attendant. In principle, I probably could have run away if I’d wanted to… but without a passport...”

Upon his arrival in Moscow, he was met by police officers at the steps of the plane and taken to a separate room, where he says he was interrogated “quite roughly” and his phone was confiscated.

“My mistake was that I didn’t delete anything,” he says. “I’d had four arrests before, including for an anti-war protest. I also had a photo with a Ukrainian flag on my phone.”

Mashinin was released after the interrogation, but a few days later, police came to his registered address. They drew up two administrative protocols against him: for “discrediting” the army and for petty hooliganism.

After two days in a detention centre, Mashinin was taken to the Kovrov City Court, which fined him 35,000 roubles, or over $400, for “discrediting” the Russian army over anti-war posts on the VK social network. In January 2025, Mashinin left Russia again.

According to Mashinin, he tries to keep in touch with several Russians who were his cellmates in Texas; they also face deportation and subsequent arrest.

“There are actually a lot of deportations,” he says. “One of my cellmates has already lost his case with the same judge I had. Another one—he’s already filed an appeal—is on a federal wanted list in Russia. If they deport him, he’ll be arrested too.”

With contributions from Sergei Golubev and Alexander Borodikhin

Edited by: Dmitry Treshchanin