Political activist Xenia Eliseeva fled Russia in 2021. After three years in Bulgaria, her request for political asylum there has been rejected. Her future in the country is now unclear.
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00:00Here you're learning how to be free.
00:03Something that still didn't change in me when I see police,
00:07I immediately, like, inside, I'm, like, scared.
00:11For Europeans, police are someone who will protect you.
00:15To us, it's dangerous.
00:18Ksenia Eliseva was born in the southern Russian port city of Rostov-on-Don.
00:23For the last three years, she has lived in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.
00:27The last big protests in Russia was when Navalny was caught and put in the prison.
00:35After this, we had the last biggest protests, which was punished the hardest.
00:41Now, this was the moment that I understood that in this country
00:44it's already impossible to change anything.
00:47When she saw the Russian buildup of troops and weaponry at the Ukrainian border in 2021,
00:52she decided that the time had come for her to leave.
00:55When I saw this, I understood that he totally got crazy, even more.
01:02Like, before, we thought that he was just a tyrant.
01:06And at this moment, I understood that he also got crazy.
01:10And crazy tyrant is the worst combination.
01:13So I packed and I moved to Poland.
01:15After spending time in Poland, she went to Montenegro and then to Armenia.
01:20Eventually, she got a visa for Bulgaria.
01:23There, she joined an organization called For a Free Russia,
01:26which was founded by Russian immigrants, and started helping Ukrainian refugees.
01:31She applied for asylum in Bulgaria, but her application was rejected.
01:37And I'm not the only one who got declined.
01:41And this also why important to talk about this, that it's not one of two people.
01:47Like, it's a lot of people who are against the war, who are all in danger, who can't go back to our country.
01:55Diana Radoslavova of the organization Voice in Bulgaria offers legal support to refugees.
02:02She says that in Xenia's case, the decision of the Bulgarian Refugee Agency and the courts is full of contradictions.
02:09The striking in this case is, in first place, the abundance of evidence for a political opinion that puts the person in complete danger,
02:22in correspondence with all the facts that are notoriously famous about the situation in Russia.
02:31According to Radoslavova, it's getting harder and harder for migrants to get any kind of permits in Bulgaria.
02:37Recently, an unaccompanied four-year-old was denied asylum.
02:41Saudi activist Abdulrahman Al Khalidi's asylum application was also rejected,
02:46despite a UN report indicating he would probably not be safe in his home country.
02:51The tendency is more and more repressive measures to be implemented,
02:57more and more border procedure and detention to be used here comes the case of Abdul Rahman, who is for a fourth year detained.
03:07DW asked the Bulgarian Refugee Agency for an interview on Xenia's case and received a written reply stating,
03:14all the facts and circumstances on which the asylum seeker has based her refugee claim have been discussed and analysed in detail.
03:22I want to stay because I want to be alive, I don't want to be in prison and actually for these three years I start enjoying the freedom,
03:34the free speech that I can say what I think.
03:37Despite these hurdles and setbacks, Xenia refuses to give up.
03:41She recently submitted a new application for political asylum in Bulgaria.
03:46Ãnia going to be