Russian citizen Anton Gorbachev, who has lived in Ukraine since he was 10 years old and has not been to Russia for about 30 years, is being threatened with deportation from Finland to Russia, he told ASTRA. According to a police order, he must leave the country and the EU by September 10, 2026. Gorbachev fears that after his return, he may be detained and held criminally liable due to his ties with Ukraine and his public anti‑war stance.
The man moved from Russia to Ukraine in 1995. According to him, his parents exchanged their apartment and moved to Vasylkiv near Kyiv, where the family’s relatives lived. After school, he worked as a courier in Kyiv. Now he has a permanent indefinite residence permit in Ukraine of the old type. At the same time, he retained Russian citizenship in order to avoid military service.
After the full‑scale invasion began, in August 2023, Gorbachev left for Finland. He applied for temporary protection, but his application was rejected. After an unsuccessful appeal, Gorbachev received a notice requiring him to leave Finland and return to Russia.
According to him, he did not expect such a development of events and, following a lawyer’s advice, applied for international protection.
However, Finnish migration authorities also denied him asylum, believing that he could safely return to Russia.
Gorbachev lost his last appeal in August 2026. The decision was issued on August 10. After that, he was informed that he needed to leave the EU by September 10.
One of the reasons Gorbachev considers returning to Russia dangerous is his public anti‑war stance.
According to him, after Russia launched its full‑scale invasion of Ukraine, he published materials about the war and Russian war crimes, including the events in Bucha. On social media, he also reposted publications by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, materials about the war, and other anti‑war content.
At the same time, Gorbachev says that the Finnish authorities considered his public activities to be insufficient for Russian law enforcement agencies to take an interest in him.
“Allegedly, I’m not a blogger and my reach is small, so reposts of Zelenskyy’s stories, war crimes committed by the Russian army, and so on didn’t receive much publicity and most likely went unnoticed by Russian services. And they won’t be able to find out about a transfer to some fund at the start of the war, because the bank isn’t Russian. And people connected with Ukraine supposedly don’t attract much attention in Russia.” I stated in the appeal letter that devices are being hacked at the border, and no scope of coverage has anything to do with it, nor do foreign banks help, but the court either didn’t understand or didn’t take this information into account, because the decision essentially contained the same thing.
Now the man is staying with his girlfriend in Joensuu. They have already bought a ticket to Chisinau, Moldova – Gorbachev will have to show it to the police as proof of his intention to leave Finland.
At the same time, he continues to challenge the deportation decision. Although the decision was made on August 10, the lawyer informed him about it only on August 25. The next day, an appeal was filed with the higher court, requesting that the deportation be suspended.
If he still has to leave Finland, Gorbachev will most likely return to Ukraine. He acknowledges that there may also be problems there due to his Russian passport and the ongoing shelling, but he believes the risks are significantly lower than in the event of returning to Russia.
