The applicants are a Russian family with four minor children who were denied entry into Poland on 22 occasions and were returned each time to Belarus without having their applications for asylum examined in Poland. Before the ECtHR they claimed that the officers of the Polish Border Guard disregarded their statements concerning their wish to apply for international protection and returned them to Belarus.

The ECtHR made reference to its previous judgment in M.K. and Others v. Poland (No 40503/17, 23 July 2020) in which it had analysed a similar situation and considered whether Belarus was a safe country in which applicants could be returned without a risk of chain refoulement. Similarly, the court concluded that in this case there was a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention as the applicants had not been given the opportunity to lodge asylum requests despite having expressed such a wish at the border crossing point. The court further found a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 as well as of Article 13 of the Convention in conjunction with Article 3 of the Convention.