Georgy Avaliani, a 47-year-old father of three, was mobilized into the Russian army in the fall of 2022. He fled the front line as soon as he was deployed, only to be arrested, held in a “torture basement,” and sent back to his unit. It took two more attempts for him successfully escape abroad. Under pressure from Russia’s military police, his wife and children soon followed. But although Avaliani is still on Russia’s federal wanted list, Germany’s migration office rejected his family’s application for political asylum. According to a new report by the independent outlet Mediazona, this is part of a broader trend. Citing Vladimir Putin’s claims that Russia’s mobilization drive has ended, Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) appears to be conflating deserters with draft dodgers — and erroneously concluding that neither are at risk of persecution in Russia, Mediazona says. Moreover, according to the outlet, German authorities appear to be issuing cookie-cutter rejection letters, putting those seeking asylum at risk of deportation to Russia.
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Georgy Avaliani never planned to leave Russia. He lived with his wife and three children in Lyubertsy, a satellite city of Moscow, and had a good job as an engineer for a leading Russian water company, Mosvodokanal.
According to Mediazona, Avaliani had been previously exempted from military service due to “heart problems.” But after President Vladimir Putin announced a wave of mobilization in the fall of 2022, he received a draft notice.
Avaliani’s children were all minors at the time, which should have exempted him from mobilization by law. After an unsuccessful attempt to appeal the summons, he appeared before a draft board and was immediately sent off for basic training. Then, he was deployed to an occupied area of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, roughly 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from the front line.
Avaliani fled his unit just a few days later. He shared a taxi to the border with four other deserters, and then the group split up to cross into Russia on foot. Avaliani and his companion made it across, but were soon arrested in an abandoned border village. (Avaliani claims the other deserters came under helicopter fire, but this hasn’t been independently confirmed.)
Following his arrest, Avaliani spent 10 days in a “torture basement” — a Russian military prison where he was beaten repeatedly and subjected to a mock execution. According to Mediazona, Avaliani was held in the Zaitsevo Detention Center for Military Personnel Temporarily Unfit for Combat, an infamous “prison for objectors” in the occupied Luhansk region.
Avaliani was then sent back to the front, only to be injured in an explosion two days later. He suffered a concussion and a heart attack and was referred to a hospital in Russia. But he went into hiding at his family’s dacha instead, travelling to Lyubertsy periodically for medical treatment.
Military police arrested Avaliani near his home in Lyubertsy in mid-February 2024. He was sent to his unit’s permanent base in Kaliningrad, where a military medical board rejected his appeal for discharge and deemed him fit for service. Then, in May, Avaliani learned that a criminal case had been opened against him, and he decided to flee abroad.
Avaliani travelled to St. Petersburg — where he met his wife, Oksana, to pick up his international passport — and then flew to Belarus. From there, he travelled via Uzbekistan and Georgia to Montenegro.
Meanwhile, Oksana began receiving calls from investigators. After the family’s home was searched in September, she suffered a nervous breakdown and spent a month in a psychiatric clinic. But this didn’t deter the military police. After their last visit, on January 7, 2025, Oksana decided to leave Russia with the two youngest Avaliani children. Their eldest daughter, who was by then 19, stayed behind.
To force deserters back to war, Russia’s military is torturing their familiesTo force deserters back to war, Russia’s military is torturing their families‘Apolitical people’
After reuniting in Bosnia, the Avaliani family entered the European Union as asylum seekers through Croatia. They arrived in Germany in late January. By that point, Georgy Avaliani had been wanted in Russia for more than six months on charges of “unauthorized abandonment” of his military unit. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison.
The family found themselves living in a small trailer at the defunct Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, which serves as a refugee shelter. With the help of activists, they managed to avoid deportation and have Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) examine their asylum case on its merits. However, in January 2026, the news broke that their application had been rejected.
Avaliani plans to appeal the decision. But if it isn’t overturned, his family will be forced to leave Germany within 30 days or face deportation to Russia.
During his hearing with BAMF, Avaliani told migration officials that he would “fear for his life” if returned to Russia. Oksana described the psychological strain she and her children had suffered due to the visits from the military police. The family also provided documents to corroborate their story, including Avaliani’s mobilization notice and the warrant for his arrest posted on the Russian Interior Ministry’s website.
Nevertheless, German authorities rejected the family’s application for political asylum. “There is no reason to believe that they would be at high risk of persecution or serious harm if they return to the Russian Federation,” a BAMF official wrote in the decision.
According to documents seen by Mediazona, the German authorities deemed the Avalianis “apolitical people” and failed to grasp why the Russian authorities would consider them opponents of the regime. They also incorrectly concluded that the only penalty Avaliani might face for abandoning his unit would be a misdemeanor fine.
The decision further cited Putin’s claim that Russia’s mobilization was “completed,” while also arguing that Avaliani is unlikely to be drafted in the future, given the country’s reserve pool of 25 million people.
“Even taking into account that the applicant has evaded mobilization, there is no reason to expect that, as a result of evasion and failure to comply with a conscription order, he will be subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment, the threat of which is necessary to obtain asylum,” the decision stated.
‘I had only one reason for leaving: persecution’
Based on an analysis of Avaliani’s asylum application and those of other Russian deserters, Mediazona concludes that BAMF officials seem to be issuing cookie-cutter decisions. Moreover, German authorities appear to be conflating deserters — who face severe legal consequences in Russia for fleeing frontline service — with Russians seeking to avoid mobilization.
According to Mediazona, BAMF officials draw on a “collection of excerpts” from analytical and media reports to justify their decisions — including articles published by state-owned Russian media and independent outlets (“such as Meduza and Verstka”). The journalists were also “surprised” to find that German authorities cited a Mediazona article from 2023 to support their claims that draft dodgers only face misdemeanor penalties.
“At the time of publication, there were indeed no known criminal cases for evading military service, but the situation has since changed (as we warned about in that very article),” they note.
Mediazona adds that German officials “do not consider the persecution of mobilized individuals to be politically motivated,” and that they seemingly take Putin’s declarations about the mobilization having been “completed” at face value. However, as Meduza has reported previously, the Russian president’s 2022 mobilization decree technically remains in effect.
“A crowd of people rushed to apply for asylum because of the mobilization — some without so much as a summons,” explained Alexey Alshansky, the coordinator of Proshchai Oruzhie! (“Farewell to Arms”), an organization of anti-war Russian deserters. “I think they’ve driven the Germans so crazy that now, as soon as they see a Russian applicant and the word ‘mobilization,’ they churn out a rejection letter.”
Alshansky speculated that BAMF’s decision to reject Avaliani’s asylum application is connected to this wave of requests. Farewell to Arms estimates that there are currently around 100 Russian deserters in Germany. According to human rights lawyer Artyom Klyga, however, around 1,000 Russian citizens have requested asylum in Germany, citing the 2022 mobilization.
Mediazona also notes that the text of the rejection letter Avaliani received from BAMF was largely identical to the decisions in cases of Russians fleeing the draft.
Avaliani is currently reviewing options with his lawyers for appealing the decision. However, he has no plans to return to Russia if the rejection is upheld. “I didn’t come here to eat tastier sausage but rather to avoid ending my life in prison. I had a good job in Russia, and I’ll never achieve the standard of living I had there,” he told Mediazona. “I have only one reason for leaving: persecution. It’s a shame they don’t understand that.”
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