The number of asylum applications by Russian citizens in the United States hit a 24-year high in 2017, jumping nearly 40 percent from the previous year and continuing an upward march that began after Russian President Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012.

U.S. authorities received 2,664 new asylum applications from Russian nationals in the fiscal year ending on September 30, a 39-percent increase compared to 2016.

RFE/RL obtained the 2017 statistics, which have yet to be released publicly, under a Freedom Of Information Act request filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The 2017 figure is more than double the number of first-time applications by Russians since 2012, when Putin was elected to a third presidential term after serving four years as prime minister. It also eclipsed the previous high according to USCIS data for post-Soviet Russia, set in 1994 with 2,127 first-time asylum applications by Russians.

A flashpoint of criticism has been law signed by Putin in 2013, a year into his third term, that banned disseminating "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations" to minors, and which has been widely denounced as discriminatory -- an accusation the Kremlin rejects.

The USCIS statistics do not indicate the basis for the asylum claims, though successful applicants must demonstrate "persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution" in their home country "on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion."

Rights activists and immigration attorneys say the surge in the number of Russian asylum applications in the United States has been driven in part by the 2013 law concerning sexual minorities. Read more via RFE