Freedom of movement and freedom of thought are diminishing even further for Russians opposed to the Putin regime. This results not just from a continuing campaign of repression by the Kremlin, but also from increasingly hostile decisions aimed at individual Russians by the US and Europe.
There is now a risk that pro-democracy Russian citizens may suffer worse treatment abroad even than during the Cold War.
First, the situation inside Russia. This summer, the authorities tightened control over video and audio calls by suppressing video and audio traffic on WhatsApp and Telegram. This was a significant step, and the Kremlin people have known it would be unwelcome to most Russians, since this is the way most Russians communicate with friends and relatives in the outside world.
As part of the same decision, the authorities attacked the mobile Internet: in more and more cities and towns across the country, it is becoming almost impossible to use the Internet on smartphones. Reaching out to any Russian from abroad with a simple call at any moment is becoming a thing of the past.
Under the new reality, a caller has to wait for their interlocutor to come home, connect to Wi-Fi, and switch on all available VPN services in order to be able to talk, with no guarantee of a stable connection.
The second element is that the rising walls around Russians are also being built by others. The US has changed its visa rules, designating just two cities in the world where Russians can now apply: Warsaw in Poland and Astana in Kazakhstan. (The US stopped issuing visas to Russians inside Russia in 2021, but until now, it was still possible to apply in most other countries.)
Given that Poland has long banned Russians without Polish residence permits from entering the country, a visit to Kazakhstan is now the only option left for those who need a US entry permit.
But for journalists in exile as well as political activists and opposition politicians, the requirement to head for Kazakhstan is very dangerous. The country fully cooperates with Moscow in extraditing Russian “troublemakers,” making a visit there a likely fast-track to a Russian prison.
Now, European officials are considering building those fences even higher.
On September 3, it was reported that the European Union’s (EU) 19th sanctions package may include a ban on European so-called tourist (C-type) visas for Russian citizens.
The demand for tougher rules began after news reports showed Russian tourists were returning to the continent in growing numbers. The rise was mostly to traditional holiday destinations like France, Spain, and Italy, according to data on hotel stays and rentals via platforms like Booking.com and Airbnb, as well as on visas issued (for instance, hotel stays by Russians in Italy and France surged by more than 19% in 2024).
In response, Yulia Navalnaya, a Russian opposition leader, posted a call on Twitter/X to distinguish between the responsibility of the regime and that of ordinary Russians, calling imposing such a ban a “serious mistake.”
Her post triggered an angry reaction. Why, some asked, should Russians sip cappuccinos in Paris while Ukrainians are hiding from missiles?
To this ethical argument, one could add a security element: Russian sabotage operations are becoming bolder and more dangerous.
It sounds, on the surface, quite logical to try to reduce the number of attacks in Europe conducted by Russian agencies by reducing the number of Russians on European soil.
But is it really as simple as it sounds?
The security problem is, of course, real, but it should be treated for what it is: a matter of Russian infiltration and covert activity. That’s an issue for European security, not European politicians.
Take the UK, where there are at least 50,000 Russian-born people. Many have taken British nationality, and a small number will be long-term Russian agents. Russian influence in the UK is assessed by a House of Commons intelligence committee to be substantial. “Whilst the oligarchs and their money have been the most obviously visible part of the Russian diaspora,” it said in 2020, “. . . events have highlighted the number of Russians in the UK who are on the opposing side.”
This is true across Europe, and yet most of these people will not be affected by visa rule changes. It’s also notable that when Russian intelligence agencies have used locally hired agents in recent years, these tend to be non-Russians. Take this case involving Ukrainians and Romanians, and this involving Bulgarians.
At the same time, a total ban on short-term visas would mean that Russian dissidents and activists fighting against Putin’s regime in Russia would lose any hope of fleeing the country or even coming to Europe, a policy that’s the polar opposite of that pursued during the Cold War when dissidents found a home in the West.
As a political argument, the case for a total ban simply doesn’t hold. The Kremlin made this war not only against Ukraine, but against the West. It’s not just about geography and Ukrainian territory —it’s about ideology. And at the end of the day, it’s about values.
Freedoms, including freedom of communication and movement, are essential elements of this. That is why the methods of circumventing internet censorship are developed in the West, not in China, Russia, or Iran, the countries where restriction is a pillar of regime survival.
Moreover, it simply doesn’t make sense to shut down Russia. There will be no lasting security in Europe without political change in Russia — and that change has always come from contact with the West. The Russian and Soviet dictators understood that. That’s why they sealed the country.
Why help them do it again? Why not instead use every opportunity to drill another hole in those fences?
This week, the domain Agentura.ru — the website belonging to these authors, where we’ve investigated Russian secret services since 2000 — was taken down. Not by the FSB, as we might have expected, but by the Lithuanian hosting company Hostinger, which cited sanctions as the reason.
For years, people asked us: “Why stay on a .ru domain? Why not move to international domains like other independent Russian media in exile?”
Our answer was always the same: we launched our project in September 2000, just as Putin came to power, on a .ru domain — deliberately — because it was part of the Russian internet, which was then a space full of hope, potential, and yes, freedom. So why surrender that space to Putin’s cronies?
When we launched Agentura, The New York Times profiled it as “A Website That Came In From the Cold to Unveil Russian Secrets.” Twenty-five years later, the political atmosphere is colder than ever. But can we really pretend we can deal with this by simply shutting the door behind us?
Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov are Non-resident Senior Fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). They are Russian investigative journalists and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities. Their book ’Our Dear Friends in Moscow, The Inside Story of a Broken Generation’ was published in June.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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