Freedom House Rossotrudnichestvo, much of the diaspora does not appear to be a priority. This may be rooted in the Russian government’s dismissive attitude towards political opposition abroad: it does not believe opposition efforts can be effective without a domestic presence. As a Russian political exile living in Europe told Freedom House: “Generally the regime’s position is, ‘no person, no problem.’”189 The Chechen Republic In distinction from the above, Russian citizens from the Chechen Republic, a province in the North Caucasus, face a total campaign of transnational repression directed by provincial leader Ramzan Kadyrov, with the approval of the Russian central government. The Chechen diaspora formed as the result of over a century of Russian occupation and colonization, and expanded dramatically during the 1994–96 and 1999–2000 wars for independence from Russia. After the defeat of the separatist movement in 2000, Kadyrov’s father, Akhmad, headed the reintegrated republic under Russian rule. Ramzan, in turn, came to power soon after his father’s assassination in 2004. As leader of the Chechen Republic, Kadyrov has presided over a regime of remarkable brutality, defined by extensive torture, extrajudicial killings, anti-LGBT+ purges, and the murders of journalists and human rights defenders.190 With a small, mostly rural population of under 1.5 million, Kadyrov’s rule has taken on a highly personal character, approaching that of a personality cult.191 Intense repression has driven tens of thousands of Chechens to flee the territory, often seeking asylum in Europe for fear that they would not be safe from Kadyrov and his circle in other parts of Russia. Even in exile, Kadyrov’s brutality follows Chechens. Two assassinations in early 2009—of former military commander Sulim Yamadayev in Dubai, and of former bodyguard Umar Israilov in Austria—marked the beginning of the pattern. Israilov had fled the country and turned witness against the regime, testifying to a pattern of torture and execution by Kadyrov and his circle. He was killed before his testimony could be heard in court.192 Since then, Chechen dissidents abroad have been killed and attacked at alarming rates. In 2016, two Chechens living in Turkey, Ruslan Israpilov and Abdulwahid Edelgiriev, were killed by people later identified by international media outlets as Russian agents.193 In August 2019, former fighter Selimkhan Khangoshvili was shot and killed on a park bench in central Berlin. In January 2020, prominent Kadyrov critic Imran Aliyev was stabbed to death in a hotel room in Lille, France.194 In February, another critic, Tumso Abdurahmonov, was attacked with a hammer in his apartment in Sweden while he slept, but he managed to subdue his assailant. Abdurahmonov claimed he warned authorities about a Chechen man who traveled with Aliyev to France and subsequently fled Europe after Aliyev’s killing.195 And in July, Mamikhan Umarov, a Kadyrov critic who was working with European authorities, was killed in a Vienna suburb.196 Russia is responsible for a staggering 38 percent of all public Red Notices in the world. There is strong evidence connecting these attacks to Kadyrov, but they most likely require the cooperation and engagement of the Kremlin itself. Investigative journalists at Bellingcat identified the man caught fleeing the scene of Khangoshvili’s murder as a contract killer linked to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).197 Abdurahmonov’s attackers would have had to engage in extensive travel and possess sufficient operational skill to enter his Swedish residence while he slept. Unlike for other Russian citizens abroad, the Chechen assassination campaign rests atop a base of extensive surveillance, digital intimidation, and coercion by proxy against the entire Chechen diaspora.198 With Chechens living abroad increasing turning to digital platforms like YouTube to voice their dissent against Kadyrov, the government has found it easy to collect information on its critics from open sources. The government then arrests, threatens, and sometimes tortures family members who remain in Chechnya, to use as leverage against dissenters abroad. Meanwhile, the government has learned to use its own tools to recruit or even seed asylum seekers to act as agents within the Chechen diaspora.199 Despite the extreme repression that Chechens face at home, asylum in Europe has become difficult to achieve for many individuals seeking to join what journalist and expert Elena Milashina called the “third wave” of Chechen refugees.200 The two wars for independence, along with the 2000–09 insurgency against Russia, bound Chechen militancy with international terrorism in the international imagination. The presence of Chechens and other North Caucasians in the freedomhouse.org 29