OUT OF SIGHT, NOT OUT OF REACH The Global Scale and Scope of Transnational Repression As part of this “political warfare,”178 the Putin government frequently builds influence networks through corrupt and corrupting means, disseminates disinformation, builds alliances with antiliberal parties and political actors, and conducts hacking operations. The government does all this while resisting and avoiding attribution, unlike in overt and clearly attributed public diplomacy efforts or soft-power efforts that rely on persuasion and attraction. The Russian campaign accounts for 7 of the 26 assassinations or assassination attempts since 2014. The Kremlin’s approach to transnational repression extends naturally from this “political warfare” concept. When selecting individual targets, the Kremlin focuses its efforts on those who may have defected to NATO member states and cooperate with their intelligence agencies, those who were considered to have previously engaged in armed conflict against Russia, or those who have run afoul of security services through business or political activities. A surprisingly common tactic is assassination; former intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko was successfully killed via radiation poisoning in 2006,179 while a nerve agent was used in the attempted assassination of former intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia in 2018.180 At a minimum, in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the Kremlin has shown a willingness to kill perceived enemies abroad.181 These attacks also come against the backdrop of numerous unexplained deaths of high-profile Russians in exile, their business partners, and other potential targets of the Russian state.182 Even in cases where the evidence is unambiguous—the use of rare radioactive isotopes and nerve agents only available to the Russian government, or the clear identification of Russian intelligence agents—the government continues to deny its role. Most importantly, it continues to employ assassination as a tactic in the face of vocal international condemnation for doing so. In addition to eliminating the individual attacked, this overt campaign sends a message to anyone involved in political, intelligence, or business activities related to the Russian state. The ripple effect of each assassination goes beyond the individual. This assassination campaign exists within a continuum alongside other tactics. The Kremlin is perhaps the world’s 28 @FreedomHouse most prolific abuser of the Interpol notice system. As other governments have found, Interpol notices and diffusions (see “Methods of Transnational Repression”) are low-cost means for the Kremlin to harass and detain exiles.183 The Kremlin’s targeting of financier Bill Browder through Interpol Red Notices has made the tool famous,184 but it uses the tactic to an extraordinary extent, and often against targets far less prominent. Without more transparency at Interpol, it is difficult to determine why or how the Kremlin is able to use its notice system so extensively. Nevertheless, Russia is responsible for a staggering 38 percent of all public Red Notices in the world, while the United States is responsible 4.3 percent and China 0.5 percent.185 Russian authorities have even been able to use Red Notices to detain individuals residing in the United States for long periods of time.186 For instance, in two separate public cases in the last two years, Russian asylum seekers spent over a year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention based on Russiansourced Interpol Red Notices. Beyond the abuse of Interpol, Russians abroad who are engaged in high-profile political opposition face surveillance and sophisticated hacking campaigns with the same techniques the government uses against high-priority national security targets.187 The Kremlin combines these tactics with efforts to control the key pillars of the Russian community abroad—the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian-language media, and Russian cultural institutions. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian government has regained control over official cultural institutions with a presence abroad; this is especially true of the Orthodox Church, which reunited in 2006 under President Putin’s leadership with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which emerged following the Russian Revolution.188 In 2008, Moscow launched Rossotrudnichestvo (Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States Affairs, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation) to coordinate activities meant to facilitate engagement with the diaspora, as well as other formal “soft power” activities. Unlike other governments, like Rwanda’s, the Kremlin’s transnational repression campaign does not seek to control the entire Russian diaspora with coercion. Instead, the regime’s domestic repression drives activists and others out of the country, seemingly on purpose. Despite Putin’s increased rhetoric surrounding the importance of “compatriots” abroad and the creation of #TransnationalRepression