Denis Kulanin, a Russian citizen who was recently pardoned after being convicted on protest-related charges in Georgia, has been placed in the Interior Ministry’s Migration Department temporary accommodation center, with his lawyers warning that authorities may seek to deport him to Russia.
Against initial hopes that he would be allowed to voluntarily leave for a third country, those plans have been delayed after the court granted a motion to keep him in migration custody “until the grounds for detention are eliminated or his deportation procedure is completed.”
His friends had bought him a plane ticket for September 1, which, according to his lawyers, was presented to the court as evidence of his readiness to voluntarily leave for a third country. However, contrary to what the lawyers say is established practice, Kulanin was not allowed to leave the detention facility today, with authorities reportedly maintaining that a separate hearing must first be held for the court to rule on his deportation before he can be allowed to leave voluntarily.
“Today, on August 31, 2026, I spoke with Denis Kulanin’s case manager, who stated that Denis Kulanin cannot voluntarily leave Georgia until the Tbilisi City Court rules on the matter of his deportation from Georgia,” defense lawyer Tsiala Ratiani wrote on Facebook. “The case manager retained neither the boarding pass nor Denis Kulanin’s Russian Federation passport.”
Ratiani said the case manager’s position “violates Denis Kulanin’s right to voluntarily leave the territory of Georgia” and “contradicts the practice of the Migration Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which allows everyone the opportunity to voluntarily leave Georgia without a deportation procedure.”
Kulanin was arrested during Tbilisi’s anti-government protests in spring 2025 and sentenced to two years in prison in June on allegations of damaging a police car. He was among 226 people pardoned by Georgian Dream-elected President Mikheil Kavelashvili on August 27, and was transferred to the detention center immediately after his release.
Fearing that Kulanin, who has been openly supportive of Ukraine, would be deported to Russia, where he may face risks to his freedom and safety, his lawyers and friends pointed to legislation and practice of allowing foreigners awaiting deportation to voluntarily leave for a third country. Kulanin’s flight was scheduled for September 1 at 12:40 p.m. On the morning of September 1, supporters gathered outside the Migration Department, calling for him to be released from the facility and taken to the airport to leave the country.
Kulanin responded to the rally held in his support with a letter. In a letter published by Publika, he wrote that he regretted signing “an unknown document” in July 2025, which he said he later learned was a pardon request.
“I signed a document unknown to me in July 2025, and I deeply regret it. When I realized it was a pardon — I wrote a refusal, but it appears to have been ignored,” Kulanin wrote. “They are now trying to deport me to Russia, no matter what happens… I can hear people shouting my name outside the prison! I’m grateful that you appeared in my life – a Georgian family that stands with me!”
In a separate deportation case in August, lawyers of Hungarian journalist and activist László Róbert Mézes, who worked in Georgia and was detained by migration authorities in Tbilisi, reported that the journalist was allowed to leave Georgia voluntarily before the deportation-related court hearing.
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