Основатель фонда «Свободная Россия» Наталья Арно рассказала о попытке шантажа и краже вещей в отеле Праги

Natalia Arno is the founder and CEO of the Free Russia Foundation. Like thousands of professionals do every year, I travelled to Berlin for a conference in late April, 2023. I met colleagues, attended panels, and spent time with friends. When the conference ended, I boarded a train to Prague for another event in early May. There was nothing remarkable about any of it. Why would there be? But for those who challenge authoritarian regimes, ordinary experiences carry a different meaning. Conferences are not simply conferences. Hotel rooms are not simply hotel rooms. Train rides are not simply train rides. They are places where surveillance may occur, where intimidation may be delivered, and where the invisible reach of a regime can suddenly become very real. In Prague, that reality caught up with me. In photos: On the Russian front lines, drones are changing the dynamics of war When I returned to my hotel room in Czechia’s capital one evening, I found the door slightly ajar. Inside was a strange and unpleasant odour I could not identify. The room appeared to have been entered, yet nothing was missing. I searched for recording devices and then registered a complaint to the front desk. I convinced myself it was probably nothing. Maybe a hotel employee had forgotten to lock the door. A few hours later, I awoke in agony. The pain felt like a catastrophic dental emergency. It spread across one side of my jaw with such intensity that I immediately changed my flight home and arranged an emergency dental appointment in Washington. But somewhere over Europe, that jaw pain disappeared. What replaced it was far worse. My vision blurred. A strange mineral taste filled my mouth. Sharp pains surged throughout my body. Numbness spread through my limbs and then along my spine. It felt as if different parts of my body were failing one by one, like some evil octopus was touching my organs from the inside and turning them off. I have spent years confronting the Kremlin and its threats. For years, I’ve worked to expose the crimes of Vladimir Putin’s regime, support political prisoners, assist those fleeing repression, and help democratic societies understand the dangers posed by authoritarian power. I did so without fear, even when, in December, 2012, Russian security services confronted me at gunpoint and told me to make a choice: leave my country or face 20 years in prison for state treason. Like many Russian dissidents, I understood intellectually that the risks did not end when I left Russia. I know that the Kremlin’s tentacles reach far beyond its own borders. But knowing that in theory is different from feeling it in your own body. And on this flight, for the first time, I was afraid – not because I knew what was happening, but because I did not. I didn’t know whether I was experiencing a neurological event, some kind of toxic exposure, or something else entirely. I only knew that my body was no longer behaving in ways I could understand. Trapped on an international flight, I watched symptoms emerge and disappear while trying to convince myself that I would make it home. The uncertainty was terrifying. It would have been comforting to believe this was an isolated event, a strange coincidence, a medical mystery. But for dissidents of authoritarian regimes, journalists, and activists living in exile, the possibility of something else is never far away. The attack that left me hospitalized was not only an assault on my health. It carried a message – and that message was not meant for me alone. This is how transnational repression works. Authoritarian regimes do not need to attack every critic; they need only make examples of some. Journalists, civil society leaders, lawyers, opposition figures, and any other exiled activists do not have to become victims themselves. They simply must wonder whether they could be next. The objective is not always to kill. Sometimes it is to remind critics that distance does not guarantee safety, to remind exiles that a border is not a shield, and to remind entire communities that the regime they fled may still be watching. Opinion: Winning battles, losing the war: The Putin-Trump history lesson When I returned to America, federal investigators treated my incident with extraordinary seriousness. They came to the hospital, secured part of the emergency department, collected evidence, took samples. They took my clothing, my suitcase, my coat, and other personal belongings. They later came to my home and interviewed me again. At first, I found that response reassuring. I had left Russia years earlier because I believed democratic societies took threats to freedom and political violence seriously. Seeing investigators respond with such urgency suggested that they understood the gravity of what may have occurred. However, three years after co-operating fully and allowing investigators to collect evidence from my body and personal belongings, I have never been able to fully piece together what happened. What had investigators concluded? Had they identified a method, a perpetrator, or even a likely explanation? Was anyone being held accountable? Would the proof of what happened to me ever be something I could share? What are longer-term implications for my health? I still can’t answer these most basic questions – questions that are important for me, but also for other at-risk dissidents who need to make their own calculations – because I have been told that the information I sought was either unavailable or withheld for nebulous national-security reasons. A journalist learned about what happened to me in Prague and wanted to write a story. This prompted me to go public with my account, rather than leave it up for others to speculate about what happened. I also felt I needed to warn my colleagues – to tell them that transnational repression is real, and that even in Western democracies, you are never totally safe. When official findings remain hidden behind redactions or a veil of national security, or when governments know more than they can or will say publicly, victims are left in an impossible position. Speak, and be challenged; stay silent and allow the attack to become dismissed as mere rumour. For authoritarian regimes, that ambiguity is useful. They do not need to convince everyone that nothing happened. They need only create enough doubt that people hesitate to say clearly what did happen. They need the conversation to shift from the crime itself to the credibility of the victim. The lessons extend far beyond Russia. Across Canada, communities that fled authoritarian governments increasingly face intimidation, surveillance, harassment, threats against family members, and other forms of pressure from regimes they believed they had left behind. Russians, Belarusians, Iranians, Chinese, Hong Kongers, Eritreans, Rwandans, and many others understand that exile or escape does not mean the end of danger. It simply means living in a different geography of risk. This is why transnational repression must be understood as more than physical violence. Poisonings, assaults, kidnappings, surveillance, threats, and harassment are only part of the method. The larger purpose is to infect, psychologically and politically. It is to isolate people, exhaust them and make them unsure – and ultimately, to make speaking out feel like another form of punishment. Democracies cannot prevent every attack. But they can decide what happens afterward. They can ensure that victims are treated not only as sources of evidence, but as human beings who deserve answers. They can create clearer channels of communication between investigators and victims. They can provide as much public information as possible when foreign regimes target individuals on democratic soil. They can impose consequences on perpetrators and their enablers. Most importantly, they can recognize that silence, secrecy, and delay may unintentionally help the very regimes responsible for these attacks. Russia has been waging hybrid warfare against Britain over Ukraine When authoritarian governments reach into democratic countries to intimidate their opponents, they are not only attacking individuals. They are testing democracies themselves. They are asking whether open societies will protect those who seek refuge there and whether victims will be believed, supported, and defended, or left alone to carry the burden of proof. I survived what I know to be an attack on my life. But survival is not the same as justice, and silence is not the same as safety. If democracies want to defend freedom, they must understand that the struggle does not end when a dissident escapes an authoritarian state. It continues in hospital rooms, in government files, in communities of exiles, and in the private calculations people make before deciding whether it is worth speaking again. The purpose of transnational repression is not only to punish one voice: It is to make many others quieter. Democracies must not help that purpose succeed.