No place of refuge: Germany’s tougher migration policy hits Russian and Belarusian dissidents

Доступно на русском

According to a September poll by the Lyon-based INSA Institute, one in three Germans views migration as the country’s most pressing problem. Analysts say this is the result of populist campaigning by right-wing parties, which aggressively push the statistically unfounded narrative that a link exists between migration and crime. The tougher migration policy has affected anti-war Russians, who had been eligible for humanitarian visas introduced after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2025, the program was suspended, leaving even those whose applications had been approved without the necessary documents.

“Control and order”

As Dr. Felix Kravatzek of the Center for East European and International Studies in Berlin told The Insider, the freeze on humanitarian programs for migrants was written into the coalition agreement signed by Merz’s government, which took office in May.

The new policy was spearheaded by Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who, according to Kravatzek, is motivated largely by politics. “He sees strict migration and asylum policies as a way to curb the far right’s rise and show that the government understands and responds to public sentiment,” Kravatzek explained.

Merz’s cabinet wants to project an image of “control and order,” said Birgit Glorius, professor of social geography at Chemnitz University of Technology. The government believes Germany’s migration policy had been too liberal and insufficiently controlled the inflow of illegal migrants, she added.

The scale of the problem

Over the past decade, Germany has weathered several migration waves — most notably those of 2015 and 2023. In 2024, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) received about 230,000 asylum requests, 30% fewer than the year before. During the first quarter of 2025, just 36,000 applications were filed, down 45% year-on-year, largely because fewer refugees were arriving from Ukraine.

“Our goal was to ensure a stable inflow of skilled labor, limit illegal migration, and fight human trafficking,” then-Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in April 2025. “We’ve made significant progress on all three fronts.”

For the Merz government, however, that was not enough. Interior Minister Dobrindt ordered stricter land-border controls and authorized police to deny entry to undocumented travelers, including asylum seekers. In July, he announced the suspension of the humanitarian visa program, which had applied to citizens of Russia and Belarus, among others.

Humanitarian visas “in the interest of protecting Germany’s political objectives” were first introduced after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. Initially, the program sought to aid Afghans who had worked for German government programs or NGOs, along with their families. It was later expanded to include human rights defenders, journalists, and activists.

Since the fall of Kabul, Germany has accepted nearly 35,000 Afghans, and roughly 425,000 people of Afghan origin now live there (making them the country’s third-largest non-European migrant group). That, observers say, has fueled right-wing anger. Berlin has since moved to limit new arrivals and has opened talks with the Taliban about carrying out deportations. “We will very soon have an agreement that we can regularly repatriate people to Afghanistan via scheduled flights,” Dobrindt said in early October.

Russians and Belarusians in limbo

In 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Germany began accepting humanitarian visa applications from Russians and Belarusians who faced political persecution at home. The process was fast-tracked, and by 2025, roughly 2,500 Russians had received such visas, according to the anti-war initiative inTransit.

Germany became a hub for anti-war emigration, issuing so-called “gray passports” — emergency travel documents that allowed entry even for those without valid papers. Among the first recipients were DOXA journalists Alla Gutnikova, Armen Aramyan, and Natasha Tyshkevich. Besides Germany, only France offered a comparable option, albeit one with much longer waiting times.

But that all changed abruptly when Merz came to power. According to rights groups involved in assisting Russians in Germany, around 300 people saw their cases suspended as a result of the new policy. In many cases, applicants had already been approved by the Foreign Ministry and were merely waiting for final word from the Interior Ministry, but processing has since stopped, a coordinator for inTransit told The Insider.

Around 300 people saw their cases suspended as a result of the new policy.

Among those caught in this bureaucratic limbo is Alexei Moskalev, a single father who served one year and ten months in prison for “discrediting the [Russian] army” after his daughter drew an anti-war picture in school. After Moskalev’s release, the family fled Russia and applied for humanitarian visas in late 2024.

“In high-profile cases like the Moskalevs, there’s still hope [that] publicity can help,” an inTransit coordinator said. “But most applicants are unknown to the public — journalists fleeing prosecution for reporting on war crimes, former political prisoners who’ve been tortured, LGBTQ+ activists, human rights defenders, lawyers, and others.”

Rights advocate Yulia Evdokimova, who herself has been waiting for a visa since last year, said even fully approved cases are being stalled: “I know of people whose applications were cleared by both the Foreign and Interior ministries, passports already at the embassy, but visas are not being issued.”

One applicant who is trying to escape Russia, Dmitry [name changed at his request], told The Insider that he applied for a visa this past summer. Now his passport has been sitting at the embassy for several months, and Dmitry has no information about how long he will have to wait for his documents. After he applied, the foundation that cooperates with a publication where Dmitry works was declared an “undesirable organization” by the Russian government.

Is a reversal possible?

Speaking at an open house event at Germany’s Foreign Ministry on Aug. 23, Michael Nowak, head of the ministry’s Russia and Belarus division, announced that the moratorium on issuing humanitarian visas had been lifted. Later, both the Foreign and Interior ministries confirmed that Germany would resume accepting applications from people “at particular risk because of their work defending freedom of speech, democracy, and human rights.”

However, it later became clear that the decision applied only to a small number of high-profile cases. In broader terms, the humanitarian visa program remains effectively closed.

Still, there is hope that at least those whose visas have already been approved will actually soon receive them. A legal precedent may help: in July, an administrative court in Berlin ordered authorities to issue visas to Afghan citizens who had already been approved under Germany’s humanitarian admission program. The federal government initially appealed the ruling but withdrew its appeal in August, effectively acknowledging the court’s decision. By early October, two groups of Afghans who had won their cases in court had already arrived in Germany. Similar rulings could follow for Russian humanitarian visa applicants.

Those already in Germany on humanitarian visas also fear potential difficulties extending their residence status. In mid-October, messages began circulating in Telegram channels claiming that in some federal states — including North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein — the renewal of residence permits for Russians and Belarusians had been suspended “until a new directive is issued.” However, according to inTransit, these cases appear to be isolated bureaucratic errors rather than examples of a widespread policy.

Experts are skeptical that the situation will improve. “If this government remains in power, I think they’ll do everything possible to reduce the number of humanitarian migrants — regardless of where they come from or how vulnerable they are. That’s their explicit promise,” said Birgit Glorius, a professor of social geography at Chemnitz University of Technology.