Switch Language

The State Duma has passed, in the first reading, a bill introducing a public registry of Russians who have left the country and have not served sentences under politically motivated administrative cases or any criminal cases. This comes from the summary of the bill on the State Duma website.

A Russian citizen who has left the country may be added to the registry if they have not served a sentence assigned to them and which has come into force under any criminal article or under six administrative articles:

  • Violation of legislation on ‘foreign agents’ (Article 19.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences);
  • Calls for violating the territorial integrity of Russia (Article 20.3.2 of the Code of Administrative Offences);
  • Discrediting the army (Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences);
  • Calls for sanctions against Russia (Article 20.3.4 of the Code of Administrative Offences);
  • Participation in the activity of an ‘undesirable organisation’ (Article 20.33 of the Code of Administrative Offences);
  • Failure to comply with instructions to correct a violation of ‘foreign agent’ legislation (Part 42 of Article 19.5 of the Code of Administrative Offences).

Being included in the registry leads to serious restrictions. Among others, a person listed will not be able to manage money in Russian accounts, access many consular services abroad, dispose of property in Russia, authorise someone else to act on their behalf through power of attorney, use the Gosuslugi portal or electronic signature. More on the list of restrictions is available in OVD-Info’s analysis.

All these restrictions will cease to apply if the person on the registry returns to Russia, serves their sentence or dies.

We envisage these restrictions so that a person who is supposed to be serving a prison sentence will not want to live abroad and enjoy the benefits of civilisation: their desire to return to Russia should be much stronger than their desire to stay abroad. That is the ideology we wanted to embed in this bill, said MP Vasily Piskarev, who is championing the initiative. Ostorozhno, novosti reported on his remarks.

Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who works with OVD-Info, considers this bill “an attempt to create a mechanism for effectively depriving people of civil rights, for those who have left Russia and are facing politically motivated prosecution.”

OVD-Info has explained in detail how this initiative will work and what people can now do for their own safety. If signed, the bill will come into force on 1 March 2026.