As the Kremlin escalates a campaign to hunt down its Russian enemies abroad, regime critics are finding that safe havens are dwindling. Some foreign governments appear ever more willing to give them up.
Anastasia Burakova, a Russian human rights lawyer and head of the Ark project, which provides support for Russian dissidents overseas, says Moscow is using threats to extract critics abroad.
“Some countries are under pressure from Russia over cheap energy, and some of them are under security threats such as hybrid [covert] attacks, or some influence in their internal politics,” said Burakova, who now lives in Spain.
Russia has greatly expanded the practice of remote trials for critics abroad, typically for violating repressive wartime laws such as disparaging the armed forces, or membership of a growing list of banned groups, which often result in convictions in absentia.
Such convictions can be damaging, says Burakova, who was given a 7.5-year sentence in absentia for publishing “fakes” about the Russian military after leaving the country.
The lawyer said she will not be able to replace her passport, and the conviction makes her more vulnerable to extradition requests. “It’s a huge limitation on my life,” said Burakova.
Former Soviet Union countries in central Asia were among the most common destinations for Russian emigres who fled after the invasion of Ukraine. But they are increasingly complying with Moscow’s extradition requests.
Turkey, another hotspot, recently ordered its first deportation of a Russian dissident. EU member Latvia has said it will deport more than 800 Russians for failing to comply with immigration rules, without offering guarantees they will not face a dangerous return home. The US sent 137 Russians back last year, according to ICE statistics.
“The world is shrinking,” says Grigorii, a Russian dissident living in western Europe, listing the countries he can no longer safely travel to. “My lawyer told me the EU is broadly safe. The US is unclear. The rest could be problematic.”
The list is always changing, he added, and even in countries considered safe “there is always a risk”.
Vladimir Putin with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Russia has expanded cooperation with Turkey to secure the extradition of dissidents (Photo: Getty)Russia has been able to use Interpol, the system for flagging suspects across borders that is shared by nearly 200 national police forces, to target its enemies.
A recent BBC investigation found the Kremlin used Interpol to request arrests of political opponents and journalists, with at least 400 requests overturned on appeal. Targets said they lived in fear of arrest, in some cases moving their families abroad, and had had their bank accounts blocked.
Interpol introduced measures to limit politically-motivated targeting after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but whistleblowers said the protocols were not followed.
Daniil Chebykin, a human rights campaigner and former member of the Navalny network, says he was flagged as a criminal by the Kremlin after claiming asylum in Armenia.
“Russia placed me on a wanted list and sent formal automated requests to several countries, including Armenia,” he said.
“I do not believe I am at risk of extradition, but when crossing borders or interacting with state authorities, this status sometimes appears in the system,” he added, which requires him to prove his refugee status.
Russian dissidents abroad also face threats such as hacking and surveillance, says Burakova, and in rare cases – more commonly in former Soviet countries – kidnapping and forcible extradition.
High profile dissidents may be in greater danger. Members of the Navalny foundation have been physically attacked, and a military defector was assassinated.
Andrei Soldatov, one of Russia’s leading investigative journalists on the Kremlin’s security agencies, was convicted in absentia after moving to the UK.
Soldatov says he now lives under police protection. “I have to think very carefully about where I go and travel,” he said. “It creates this pressure… you cannot always think rationally.”
Andrei Soldatov lives under police protectionDissidents also report an increasingly hostile environment in their host countries. Grigorii says he has been unable to open a bank account due to suspicion of Russian passport holders, which has made it difficult to secure housing.
The dissident says he has been told by local officials that anti-war Russians are “collateral damage” in western sanctions on Russia.
Losing the ability to travel without fear of being arrested and deported has also meant most dissidents have little hope of seeing their families.
“Most of us have not been home in more than four years during the war,” he said, adding families could previously meet in countries such as Turkey or Kazakhstan that are no longer safe. Neither is it possible to bring Russian relatives to Europe.
“I hope I don’t have to watch my mother’s funeral on Skype,” he said.
Burakova suggests that hostility to Russians in Europe is bound up in the idea that they are part of a “seucrity threat” that could be a vulnerability in case of a Russia-Nato war.
This is particularly acute in small Baltic states such as Latvia, she suggests, where insecurity and hostility are higher than in western Europe.
The Kremlin is keen to play on that friction between its Russian opponents and their host countries, said Soldatov, highlighting a recent case where a Russian exile was recruited for a sabotage attack in Poland.
“It felt like a smart move from the Kremlin point of view, because even if the attack failed, the whole (Russian) expat community would be viewed with suspcion,” he said.
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Dan Storyev, a Russian-American emigree and former editor of OVD-info, a Russian human rights monitor, suggests that Russian dissidents could contribute to the West’s struggle against Vladimir Putin if they were allowed to.
“This is the tragedy of it,” he said. “A lot of these Russians want to be part of Europe and part of a democratic process, and they have this expertise in understanding the language and logic of Russian autocracy. But now they are just scapegoats.”
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