Transnational repression by Russia refers to efforts by the Russian government to control its diaspora and exiles. Transnational repression targets former insiders and individuals perceived as threats to the government's security. The methods include assassination, manipulation of the Interpol notice system, and surveillance. Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia's Chechen Republic, conducts a total repression campaign against Chechen exiles. As of 2024, Russia has focused its repression on anti-war and other political activists as well as journalists, and is one of the biggest perpetrators of transnational repression in the world.
Background Freedom House has documented at least 854 direct, physical incidents of transnational repression globally from 2014 to 2022. 14 governments have used Interpol notices in detaining and deporting individuals. Russia accounted for 31% of such incidents. Russia's campaign heavily relies on assassination, targeting former insiders and individuals that the regime perceives as threats to its security. Assassinations made up one quarter of all acts of transnational repression conducted by the Russian government, while one-third of all assassinations globally were committed by Russia. According to a February 2026 report by the Montreal Institute for Global Security, Russia has engaged in transnational repression in Canada through a combination of intimidation, surveillance, cyber operations, and influence campaigns.
Methods of repression
Assassination In 2021, Freedom House reported 26 assassinations or attempted assassinations globally since 2014. The Russian transnational repression campaign accounted for seven of them. Additionally, Russia is also responsible for assaulting and detaining its nationals abroad as well as conducting renditions and unlawful deportations.
Freedom House found that the Kremlin tends to target individuals who possibly defected to member states of NATO and cooperated with those governments' intelligence agencies, ones considered to have been involved in armed conflict with Russia in the past, or those whose political or business activities conflict with the security services. It has demonstrated a willingness to take the life of perceived threats at least in Ukraine, Germany, Bulgaria, and the U.K.
Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that list includes military defectors.
In September 2026, U.S. Justice Department charged members of a Russian intelligence network with plotting to kill Kremlin critics outside Russia. The indictment alleged that the network offered $40,000 to kill or "disappear" a Russian dissident in the United States and, in a separate 2025 plot, $25,000 to kill a Kremlin critic believed to be living in Lithuania.
Interpol notice The Kremlin also harasses and detains its nationals in exile by manipulating and abusing the Interpol notice system. A significant case was its targeting of Bill Browder, a whistleblower who campaigned to sanction officials involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s murder, corruption, and human rights violations. He was placed on Interpol’s ‘wanted list’ by Russian authorities.
Russia is responsible for 38% of public Red Notices globally. Due to a lack of transparency at the Interpol, it is challenging to determine how the government is able to use this notice system to such an extensive degree. The government has also been able to use Interpol's Red Notices in detaining individuals who reside in the U.S. for extensive periods of time. Due to Red Notices from Russia, there have been asylum seekers who have spent over one year in ICE detention.
In 2021, governments in Russia, the People's Republic of China, Turkey, and Bahrain managed to have their nationals detained in Morocco, Poland, Serbia, Kenya, and Italy based on Red Notices. Most of these detained individuals are involved in political activism or civic activism.
Abuse of KYC/AML systems
The Russian , managed by Rosfinmonitoring, is widely abused by the Russian government to designate individuals targeted with criminal cases on various charges of "terrorism" or "extremism". Historically, before 2022, the registry primarily consisted of militants associated with Islamic fundamentalism, many of whom remain listed. It later expanded to include Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, the opposition leader himself (who died in a Russian jail), and his closest associates. Since February 2022, the list has expanded at breakneck speed to encompass critics of the regime, growing even faster after the State Duma passed a law expanding the powers of Rosfinmonitoring in late 2024. As of 2025, the registry expands by 250–300 people per month. Minors account for every tenth person designated, a demographic proportion that began rapidly increasing in 2023. Notable individuals listed in the registry include Alexei Navalny, Kaja Kallas, Kyrylo Budanov, Ilya Yashin, Arsen Avakov, Oleksiy Honcharenko, Lindsey Graham, Pavel Durov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, among others.
Being listed in the registry leads to the freeze of all assets in Russia, with the sole exception of allowing monthly withdrawals from bank accounts up to the minimum wage (27,093 rubles as of 2026).
When Rosfinmonitoring updates the list, the information is automatically passed on to specialized commercial companies that aggregate data on individuals and entities for KYC/AML (know your customer/anti-money laundering) systems used by financial institutions globally. The three pillars of this market—Dow Jones Risk & Compliance, LexisNexis, and World-Check—maintain databases containing politically exposed persons (PEPs), sanctioned individuals, and adverse media (negative mentions in official sources and media). Banks and other institutions rely on this data during due diligence for opening accounts, conducting mergers and acquisitions, executing investment deals, and handling other transactions. The process of inclusion is 95–99 percent automated, relying on algorithms that scan court rulings, news stories, and official websites. When an individual's status changes, financial institutions receive automated notifications that a client has been flagged in connection with terrorism, routinely prompting them to freeze transactions, demand additional documentation, or terminate the banking relationship. This automated pipeline triggers a global chain reaction, causing foreign banks and platforms to restrict listed individuals. For instance, in 2025, Telegram Wallet closed the cryptocurrency accounts of activists Daniil Chebykin and Lev Galyamin following their inclusion in the Russian registry.
Global compliance providers remain legally protected because they act as information aggregators rather than evaluators of political context; for example, providers accurately reported Belarusian dissident as a designated "terrorist" by the Belarusian KGB without assessing whether the state prosecution was politically motivated. While compliance firms develop internal risk-profiling tools and artificial intelligence models in local languages, their operations lack external auditing or international regulation. To avoid compliance liability, financial institutions frequently opt for global de-risking—rejecting entire categories of clients rather than conducting individualized assessments. According to World Bank estimates, de-risking affected over 700 million people between 2015 and 2018, primarily in low- and middle-income countries, and continues despite the FATF revising its standards in 2023. Consequently, the financial and transactional costs of clearing a risk profile fall entirely on the individual, who must fund costly legal representation to interface with data providers and compliance departments. This is especially challenging for dissidents who flee Russia prior to sentencing, as their options are often limited to a complete change of legal identity, which is rarely possible for those holding only a Russian passport.
The international financial system currently lacks formal mechanisms to evaluate the weaponization or politicization of national terrorist registries. To mitigate this systemic abuse, analysts and human rights observers propose establishing quantitative red-flag indicators of state misconduct. Proponents suggest that metrics such as a government adding an anomalous number of individuals per month (e.g., 300 people) or designating a high percentage of minors (e.g., 10%) should serve as formal triggers, making it feasible for the FATF or independent monitoring bodies to track and flag countries that systematically weaponize financial compliance mechanisms against political dissent.
List of most notable Russian criminal code articles used for political reprisals for violation of which a person can be included into the registry: 205.2 - 205.4 - Organization of a terrorist community and participation in it 205.5 - Organization of activities of a terrorist organization and participating in the activities of such an organization 207.3 - Dissemination of fakes about Russian army activity based on political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or based on hatred or enmity towards any social group 213 - Hooliganism with extremist motives 280 - Public calls for extremist activity 280.1 - Public calls for actions aimed at violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation 280.3 - Repeated discreditation of the Russian armed forces 280.4 - Calls for implementation of activities directed against security of the state on grounds of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or on the grounds of hatred or enmity towards any social group 281 - Sabotage 281.1 - Assistance to sabotage activities 281.2 - Training for the purpose of carrying out sabotage activities 281.3 - Organization of a sabotage community and participation in it 282 - Incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as abasement of human dignity 282.1 - Organization of an extremist community 282.2 - Organization of the activities of an extremist organization 282.3 - Financing of extremist activity 282.4 - Repeated propaganda, public display, manufacturing, or sale of Nazi attributes or symbols, or symbols of extremist organizations Any other crimes committed on the grounds of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or on the grounds of hatred or enmity towards any social group (as specified in Article 63, Part 1, Item "e").
Surveillance and hacking Russian nationals abroad who are high-profile critics of the government's politics are subjected to surveillance and hacking campaigns.
Russian communities abroad The Kremlin also exerts control over Russian communities abroad, such as Russian cultural institutions, the Russian Orthodox Church, and Russian-language media. Since the Soviet Union's dissolution, the government again gained control over certain official cultural institutions that had a presence abroad. In 2006, under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, the Orthodox Church reunited with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, a church that emerged after the Russian Revolution. In 2008, the government launched Rossotrudnichestvo to "coordinate activities meant to facilitate engagement with the diaspora, as well as other formal 'soft power' activities," as reported by Freedom House.
Domestically focused Unlike other governments that commit transnational repression, the Kremlin does not try to control the entirety of the Russian diaspora through coercion. It instead focuses on activism repression at home and controlling the information environment so that exiles are unable to reach domestic citizens. The government also will confiscate property, file spurious charges, and threaten colleagues or family members who remain in Russia. Indigenous activists have been a significant target for repression.
Campaign against Chechens