Kasmira Jefford on 23 September 2026 in Geneva Solutions discusses the transnational repression by Russia as exposed in Mariana Katzarova’s report to the UN.
Reporting to the Human Rights Council this week on the Kremlin’s widening crackdown on Russian critics overseas, Mariana Katzarova urged states to create a binding international instrument to put a stop to authoritarian governments reaching across borders. Since being appointed special rapporteur on Russia by the Human Rights Council in October 2022 – eight months after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine – Mariana Katzarova has reported widely on the Kremlin’s expanding efforts to stifle critics and anti-war voices within its borders.
But her latest report took her into new territory. “Today, I report on how Russia is exporting that rule of fear,” she told members gathered in the Palais des Nations’ Assembly Hall on Monday. The country in question was conspicuously absent.
The Bulgarian human rights expert and former journalist described how Vladimir Putin’s government “has become one of the most prolific perpetrators of transnational repression” by building a state-run system to surveil, intimidate and punish any citizens seen to be voicing dissent abroad.
Drawing on more than 400 documented cases, Katzarova noted these were “not a series of isolated incidents”. “It is the continuation, beyond Russia’s borders, of the same structural, state-sponsored system of repression I have documented at home,” she added.
Her report, she claims, is the first UN country-specific report on transnational repression – a concept for which Katzarova said there is still no universal definition but which she describes as a state reaching beyond its borders to silence political or civic opponents.
In August, Russia introduced a new law imposing sweeping financial, property and consular restrictions on Russians living abroad who have pending convictions, including under legislation used to prosecute critics. “My report calls this civic death, de facto statelessness for people who remain on paper citizens,” she added, calling on Moscow to rescind the law.
Russia declined Geneva Solutions’ request to comment. In a statement issued earlier this month, Moscow’s foreign ministry said its stance was unchanged from previous years. “We do not recognise the mandate of this illegitimate special procedure, and any form of interaction with it is unacceptable to us”.
Several journalists and rights defenders targeted by Russia were also present at the Human Rights Council on Monday to share their testimonies – including Natalia Arno, an exiled Buryat human rights defender, who fell ill in 2023 with suspected poisoning symptoms during a conference visit in Prague.
Arno, who lives in the United States where she founded the Free Russia Foundation, recalls finding her hotel room door open and noticing a strange smell inside. She woke up the next day with sharp dental pain and cancelled the rest of her trip. On the flight back, she said her organs started to fail, and she was rushed to the hospital on arrival.
Arno said US authorities investigating the case couldn’t tell her what happened, claiming it was a matter of national security. However, according to the special rapporteur, she was told informally by a military hospital that was analysing her bloodwork that she had been targeted by a new type of Novichok.
The suspected attack was unlike anything she had experienced before. “This was another eye-opening level, because it seemed like surveillance, cyberattacks – they just wanted some information about us. But to physically attack us, it was something new,” Arno said.
She said that more needed to be done at an international level to raise awareness of transnational repression. “This issue should not only be treated as a human rights issue. It’s definitely a national security issue because it’s also an attack on the sovereignty of your country,” she said as she addressed states in the room.
Roman Dobrokhotov, Russian journalist and editor-in-chief of news platform The Insider, was also at the side event. “You don’t see my name here because of security reasons – I can’t announce in advance when I’m flying to a conference, even if it is a UN event.”
The Kremlin has targeted Dobrokhotov following investigations by his media into the government’s role in a string of deadly incidents, including the poisoning of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020. Last year, in a long-running trial in the UK, where the journalist and his family have been residing, a court found six Bulgarians guilty of spying for Moscow in a sophisticated operation that included Dobrokhotov among their targets.
He echoed Arno’s concern that repression of individuals was also a problem of global security, saying the same groups targeting him “were also responsible for a big wave of sabotage operations in many different countries”.
Katzarova said countries, particularly in Europe and the United States, where she had seen many cases of transnational repression, needed to work more closely to combat the problem, especially by vetting international compliance databases like Interpol to prevent politically motivated entries or arrest warrants from being automatically cleared.
The expert called for a UN convention to establish common definitions, host-state responsibility, and frameworks for prevention, accountability, and cooperation.
“I hope this is not just a distant dream, but there is a lot of work to be done by member states to initiate such a new instrument,” she told journalists, adding that the Human Rights Council should be at the forefront of such a movement.
“In the meantime, while we don’t have this convention in place, I am calling on the host states to actually develop on their national level a whole framework set up to tackle transnational repression with a strategy, with involvement of their law enforcement, prosecutors, civil society, in order to identify who the victims are,” she said.
Human Rights Council members will vote at the end of the session on whether to renew her mandate – in a resolution being led by the European Union. Commenting on the report on the human rights situation in Russia, the EU ambassador noted the existence of a systematic mechanism of repression in Russia that operates even beyond the country’s borders to suppress criticism.
“The EU is concerned about the report’s findings, the cases of murders and poisonings, the abuse of legal and administrative procedures, the conduct of digital operations, and the use of Interpol contrary to its intended purpose — all of which are directed against individuals both within Russia and beyond its borders,” the EU representative noted. [https://ua.news/en/world/es-zaklikav-rosiiu-pripiniti-peresliduvannia-gromadian-cherez-interpol]
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