GENEVA – The Russian Federation has built a State-run system to surveil, intimidate and punish critics abroad, and coerce their families at home, a UN expert warned today, describing Russian transnational repression as a violation of international law that challenges host State sovereignty, and must be stopped.
“Transnational repression is not a series of isolated incidents abroad. It is the continuation, beyond Russia’s borders, of the same structural, State-sponsored system of repression I have documented at home,” said Mariana Katzarova, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, in her latest report to the Human Rights Council. “Leaving Russia does not mean leaving Russian repression behind.”
The report “Nowhere is safe: exporting the rule of fear beyond borders – transnational repression by the Russian Federation”, draws on almost 400 documented cases and finds that Russia’s transnational repression is a systematic and institutionalised State strategy, inseparable from the consolidation of authoritarian rule at home and the war of aggression against Ukraine.
“Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Federation has become one of the most prolific perpetrators of transnational repression; accountability is non-existent, investigations are absent, the Russian authorities deny involvement and have at times promoted or honoured alleged perpetrators,” Katzarova said.
The most serious forms are targeted violence and threats to life: assassinations, attempted killings, assaults and poisonings. As for direct physical attacks, Russia ranks third in a group of 10 States responsible for over 70% of documented incidents over the past decade.
The Russian Federation has a long record of political assassinations, including Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 and Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019. Exiled journalists and human rights defenders have also reported suspected poisonings, including Novaya Gazeta journalist, Elena Kostyuchenko, in Munich, former Echo of Moscow journalist, Irina Babloyan, in Tbilisi in 2022, and Free Russia Foundation President, Natalia Arno, in Czechia and Germany in 2023.
Since February 2022, between 650,000 and 900,000 people have left Russia: the country’s largest political emigration since the 20th century. As civil society in exile expanded, annual documented incidents of transnational repression rose roughly eight times: 29 cases in the eight years before 2022, 89 in the three years after; in absentia sentences rose from four in 2022 to 157 in 2025. At least nine departments of the Federal Security Service are reportedly involved, alongside military and foreign intelligence services, prosecutors and government ministries.
Katzarova’s report noted that the defining change since 2022 is method, not scale alone.
“Repression now travels through arrest warrants, databases, banks, digital systems, SLAPP and proxies. The Russian Federation is the most frequent user of INTERPOL Red Notices, and roughly half of Russia-related cases reviewed by INTERPOL’s oversight body in 2024 were found non-compliant with its Constitution,” the Special Rapporteur said.
Rosfinmonitoring registers 21,541 individuals as “terrorists and extremists”, at least 5,063 prosecuted on politically motivated charges. That data propagates automatically and unvetted through global compliance databases such as LSEG World-Check and LexisNexis and banks block victims’ accounts without evidence. In June 2026, OVD-Info – whose monitoring underpins international reporting on Russian repression – was itself added to the register.
Katzarova said women fleeing forced marriage and domestic violence in Chechnya, LGBT activists and Indigenous Peoples’ advocates face heightened cross-border risk.
A Federal Law enacted in August 2026 imposes 14 categories of restrictions on listed nationals abroad, from frozen assets to withdrawn passports.
“They keep the duties of citizenship while losing most of its content. This is civic death,” she said.
Abuse of international legal assistance can have devastating consequences. Torture survivor Mansur Movlayev, who fled Chechnya, twice attempted suicide after nearly 18 months in detention in Kazakhstan over a Russia extradition request. After repeated asylum rejections, he remains at risk of torture or death if returned.
Yet host States like Kazakhstan continue to honour legal-assistance agreements with Russia, leaving victims unprotected, the Special Rapporteur said.
“There is nothing inevitable about transnational repression,” Katzarova said. “Where host States meet their obligations – respecting non-refoulement, scrutinising Russian INTERPOL notices and wanted-list entries, and requiring banks to verify Russian designations – transnational repression fails.”
Noting the absence of a binding international instrument specifically addressing transnational repression, the Special Rapporteur called for the development of a UN convention to establish common definitions, host-State duties and frameworks for prevention, accountability and inter-State cooperation.
