Natalia Arno is President and Founder of Free Russia Foundation, a US-headquartered nonprofit nonpartisan nongovernmental organization. FRF was created in 2014 with the aim of uniting Russians— inside Russia and internationally— who are committed to making Russia a democracy. FRF maintains physical presence in Brussels, Belgium; Kyiv and Lviv, Ukraine; Tbilisi, Georgia; Berlin, Germany; Vilnius, Lithuania; Tallinn, Estonia; Warsaw, Poland; Budva, Montenegro; Lisbon, Portugal; Paris, France, and other locations. Since 2014, Ms. Arno has been continuously directing programs organizing Russian civil society to support and free Kremlin’s political prisoners.
From 2004 to 2014, Ms. Arno served as the Russia Country Director for the International Republican Institute. For her pro-democracy work, she was forced into exile by Putin’s regime. Having lost her homeland, Ms. Arno dedicated her life to advance the vision of a free and peaceful Russia by supporting the Russian civil society and defending activists at risk.