DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Now, when Russia's communist system came crashing down 25 years ago, many Russians hoped their country would become a democracy. We were reminded two years ago how dim those hopes have become when a prominent opposition leader was assassinated in downtown Moscow. As NPR's Lucian Kim reports, political exile has once more become the only option for a growing number of Russians.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Russia will be free.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Russia will be free.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Russia will be free.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: On a bright Sunday afternoon last November, a dozen young Russians picketed their embassy in Washington D.C. I'd come to meet Anastasiya Popova, who under different circumstances might've been sitting inside the embassy instead of standing outside it.
ANASTASIYA POPOVA: I graduated from our Russian Diplomatic Academy. And I used to work in the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs in the Department of New Challenges and Threats.
KIM: But when the 29-year-old native of St. Petersburg became interested in opposition politics, she had to choose - keep her government job or work for the other side. Popova chose politics and became an aide to Ilya Ponomarev, the only member of the Russian Parliament to vote against annexing Crimea in 2014. Before too long, Ponomarev was living in exile in the U.S. as authorities in Russia built a criminal case against him, a common tactic used against opposition leaders. Then Popova says she got a warning that she, too, should leave the country ASAP.
POPOVA: Yeah. That was the end of October 2014. And that was my personal Halloween, you know, when I find myself in the U.S. with just a suitcase. And I had no idea where to go next.
KIM: Popova follows in a long history of Russian political exiles dating back to the 1800s, Jews fleeing persecution, Russian aristocrats fleeing revolutionaries and dissidents getting the boot from the communist regime. But once they've left, exiles like Popova are cut off from their homeland.
FIONA HILL: Love it or leave it. That's exactly the idea. And if you leave it, then you leave it. And that's the bitter nature of exile.
KIM: Fiona Hill is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. She says that once they're out, political exiles have little influence back home, even with the help of the internet.
HILL: I think social media does add a different ingredient. A lot of activity can take place in social media and in the internet. But it doesn't necessarily translate to action on the ground.
KIM: Someone who's still trying to take action in Russia is Ilya Yashin, an opposition leader who's refusing to leave. I met him in a coffee shop outside Washington while he was visiting the U.S.
ILYA YASHIN: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: "Somebody has to stay and continue engaging in opposition politics," Yashin told me, "because it's an example to others to stay and fight for their country." Yashin said many political activists left Russia after his friend, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, was assassinated outside the Kremlin in February 2015. According to research by Radio Free Europe, Russian applications for political asylum in the U.S. have increased for the fourth straight year. Anastasiya Popova says for dissidents like her, leaving Russia is the only choice.
POPOVA: I believe that being in U.S. and telling U.S. government the truth about the political situation in Russia is more useful than just being tortured in jail.
KIM: When it comes to dealing with Russia, Popova has a message for President-elect Donald Trump. Negotiate hard. Don't make any concessions as a sign of goodwill and keep expectations low. Lucian Kim, NPR News, Washington.