• 1 Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation

This article aims to highlight the way in which, in the Russian national context, public authorities erase the boundaries between return migration and asylum in order to support the repatriation of former Soviet citizens to Russia. This political phenomenon has its roots in the fall of the USSR when Russia has rapidly become a country of immigration. This resulted in the adoption of the Geneva Convention and the creation of the two socio‑legal categories of refugees in Russia: « forced migrants » and « refugees ».