When I cancelled my recent trip to the United States, some people said I’d overreacted & I would be fine. Others suggested it was politics, paranoia or fear.
The truth is far simpler, and far more troubling.
I cancelled because the world has changed, and the systems we once trusted to protect individuals from political persecution are no longer reliable. In some cases, they are being actively manipulated by states that no longer play by the rules.
A recent BBC investigation exposed one of the clearest examples yet: Russia’s systematic abuse of the INTERPOL system to pursue critics, opponents, journalists, activists, and people connected to Ukraine far beyond its borders.
For those of us who have confronted the Russian state directly, this wasn’t a revelation.
It was confirmation, and something extremely difficult to prove for people like me. International legal mechanisms are no longer neutral ground, in many cases, they have quietly become part of the battlefield.
INTERPOL was never built for this
INTERPOL was created to coordinate policing against ordinary crime, murder, trafficking, fraud. It was never designed to referee geopolitical conflict or act as a long arm of authoritarian repression. Its own constitution explicitly forbids involvement in political or military matters.
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Yet the evidence shows how Russia has learned to exploit that very restriction.
Political enemies are rebranded as criminals.
Ukrainian veterans become “terrorists.”
Foreign volunteers become “mercenaries.”
Journalists become “extremists.”
Businesspeople who refuse to support Russia’s war effort suddenly face allegations of fraud or financial crime.
I know this personally.
I have been branded a Nazi, a mercenary, and a terrorist, while I never set foot outside the country where I held legal residency.
By stripping cases of political context and repackaging them as standard criminal proceedings, Russia exploits INTERPOL’s neutrality rules while simultaneously shielding its own war crimes from scrutiny.
Ukraine, meanwhile, faces systemic barriers when trying to use INTERPOL mechanisms to pursue Russian suspects for atrocities committed during an active war, because those crimes are labelled as having a “military character.”
The result is a grotesque asymmetry:
Russia can chase its enemies globally, Ukraine cannot.
The human cost
The BBC investigation makes one thing brutally clear: Even when people targeted through INTERPOL notices are not extradited, they are far from safe.
Border detentions.
Travel bans.
Legal limbo.
Careers frozen.
Lives put on hold.
Before anyone is extradited, there should be clear safeguards:
- Is there a risk of torture?
- Is there a risk of death?
- Is this a political prosecution dressed up as law?
Yet, as one individual quoted by the BBC put it:
“When you’re hit with a red notice, your life changes completely.”
Even when notices are later cancelled by INTERPOL’s oversight body, the damage is already done. Months or years of restricted movement. advocacy silenced and families separated.
This is what transnational repression looks like in practice.
It doesn’t always arrive with handcuffs, sometimes, it arrives with paperwork and a man with a clipboard.
Why this matters to me
I am not a theoretical example.
I have already been:
- Captured
- Tortured
- Subjected to an illegal trial
- Sentenced to death by a court recognised by Russia
Those facts are not disputed.
So when people ask why I would cancel a trip to the United States, a country I’ve worked with, advised, visited, and spoken in, they are asking the wrong question.
The question is not:
“Would the US extradite you to Russia?”
The answer to that is almost certainly no.
The real question is this:
Would I risk detention, legal ambiguity, or becoming entangled in a system increasingly tolerant of Russian narratives and legal framing?
And ultimately, do you trust the government currently in power to always make the right call?
In a world where:
- Russia openly places foreign fighters on “international wanted lists”
- Journalists, including friends of mine, are sanctioned
- INTERPOL confidentiality means you often don’t know you’re listed until you’re stopped
- Political calculations increasingly override moral clarity
The margin for error collapses.
The Grey Zone We’re Entering
What the BBC investigation and the INTERPOL evidence together reveal is something bigger than any single case. They expose the erosion of a post-Cold War assumption:
that international institutions, while imperfect, are fundamentally neutral and protective.
Strip everything back and that assumption is the glue holding the system together.
When it goes, all hell can break loose.
We are entering a grey zone where:
- Authoritarian states weaponise legal frameworks
- Democratic safeguards depend on geography
- Individuals are targeted not because they broke the law, but because they challenged power
This isn’t just about Russia, it’s about precedent.
If international policing systems can be bent, or quietly bended, without consequence, and oversight only works after lives are disrupted, then freedom of movement becomes conditional. Activism becomes risky and speaking out becomes a calculation.
For those of us already targeted once, the lesson is clear:
Do not assume the system will save you in time.
Why this should worry everyone
You don’t need to be a soldier, journalist, or activist to be affected by this shift.
The structural problem is simple and dangerous.
Oversight mechanisms exist, but they are slow, opaque, and complaint-driven.
If you don’t know you’re listed, you can’t challenge it.
If you lack resources, you may never clear your name.
That reality empowers the very states most willing to abuse the system, like Russia
The chilling effect is already visible, people self-censor, because I have.
Trips are cancelled, Testimony never reaches international forums. This is repression without borders, Quiet, Bureaucratic & Devastatingly effective.
This wasn’t fear, it was clarity
Cancelling my US trip wasn’t about panic. It was about understanding where we are, not where we wish we still were.
The world has shifted:
- Law is being weaponised
- Neutrality is being exploited
- Accountability is lagging behind power
Until international institutions close these gaps, through transparency, binding oversight, and real consequences for abuse, people like me will continue making hard decisions in the absence of certainty. This isn’t paranoia, it’s pattern recognition.
And the BBC investigation, alongside the evidence surrounding INTERPOL, confirms something uncomfortable but unavoidable:
The danger is no longer confined to the battlefield. It may now be embedded in the very systems meant to protect us.
