Interpol relaxes vigilance: Russian arrest requests pass through unverified

02 February 2026 , 13:06

874     0

Interpol relaxes vigilance: Russian arrest requests pass through unverified

In 2022, following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Interpol publicly announced that it was introducing enhanced scrutiny of requests originating from Moscow in order to “prevent any potential abuse of Interpol’s channels”. Under these measures, all requests from Russia were required to be routed first to Interpol’s headquarters, where they would be reviewed before any decision was taken on whether to circulate them to other member states.

Until 2025, this system appeared to function as intended: a significant number of Russian requests were filtered out at the headquarters level. However, as the BBC has recently reported, some of these strict safeguards were later “quietly rolled back”.

Investigative, has obtained documents relating to the cases of two Russian nationals who claim they are being politically persecuted by the authorities in Russia. Both had been living openly in different European countries when they were unexpectedly detained on the basis of Interpol requests submitted by Russia.

The detainees were later able to review the materials underlying their arrests. In both cases, the documents carried the same notice (visible in video evidence): “The Interpol General Secretariat has not carried out a compliance review of this message. If you have any doubts as to its compliance with Interpol’s rules, please notify the General Secretariat.”

Putin accused of surrounding himself with same 'actors' at series of events

According to sources familiar with the process, this wording indicates that Interpol headquarters no longer conducts preliminary reviews of requests originating from Russia and instead automatically forwards them to other countries. Responsibility for identifying potential violations is effectively shifted to national authorities, which are then expected to alert Interpol headquarters if problems are found.

“In practice, no one asks Interpol headquarters to review a request from Russia,” a source told us. “Each country is left to decide for itself how to handle it.”

In the cases of the two Russian nationals, the situation was ultimately resolved: they were detained in Europe, local authorities examined the circumstances, and both individuals were released. However, how other countries might respond to similar requests in the future remains an open and troubling question.

George MacGregor