An examination of public and private tenders for services and contractors by the Sistema investigative journalism project found that conditions specifying the ethnicity of the contractor to be increasingly common. Entities including the Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology, regional administrations, and private shopping centers across the country included specifications requiring all contractors to be of “Slavic appearance” or limiting employment only to “Slavic nationalities.” Contracts for security personnel in the private and public sector also included explicit instructions to more closely inspect individuals who appeared to be of “Caucasian or Asian nationality.” Russian rights expert Stefania Kulaeva agreed that despite being contrary to Russian discrimination legislation, such provisions are increasingly the norm in Russia.   

Sources: Current Time, Kommersant 

A court in Vladimir region sentenced the late Alexey Navalny’s three lawyers to between 3.5 and 5.5 years in a prison colony on 17 January in a closed-door trial. Although none of their conduct was, before this trial, considered outside the bounds of routine legal procedure, Vadim Kobzev, Alexey Lipster and Igor Sergunin were convicted of belonging to an “extremist organization” for passing letters and information between Navalny and his colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Foundation. This is the first time since the Soviet era that lawyers have been similarly punished.  The independence and security of the legal profession in Russia has deteriorated significantly since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and human rights group First Department found 174 cases of legal harassment of lawyers in 2023. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia called for their release and described their sentences as “part of an alarming pattern of targeted repression and State control.” 

Sources: Meduza, Reuters, United Nations 

As of 1 January 2025, a legal amendment to the law ‘On state genomic registration’ means that anyone found guilty of an administrative (i.e. non-criminal) offense will be required to submit a DNA sample to a federal DNA database. The collection of genetic material has been mandated since 2009 for major violent crimes and was expanded to include prisoners and those accused of committing a felony in 2023. While some social groups such as people with disabilities, employees of the Interior Ministry, and pregnant women are exempted, there is no further option to refuse to comply. Human rights activists have long warned that the mass collection of DNA would foster the creation of a police state and, given the wide range of law enforcement officials with access to Russia’s database, create major risks for abuse of the data.  

Sources: Meduza,Novaya Gazeta Europe, Sistema Garant 

A new law signed by President Vladimir Putin on 28 December requires the children of migrants to pass a Russian-language proficiency test before enrolling in school. The law will take effect on 20 April 2025 and has been criticized by rights groups and academics as discriminatory and likely to impede the integration of the children of migrants into Russian society. Precise data on the number of children likely to be affected is unavailable, but a 2023 survey by the Ministry of Education found that about 178,000 children, or one in every hundred, in Russian schools lacked Russian citizenship. It is unclear what proportion of non-citizen (or ethnic minority citizen) children speak Russian competently. There are no free language classes for foreigners in Russia and advocates worry that affected children and their families will be further marginalized from society.

Sources:  TASS, Meduza, Kun.uz

The Russian State Duma amended 48 federal laws on 12 December to broaden the punitive measures previously reserved for those convicted or accused of terrorism-related offenses to be available in cases of “extremism” as well. The definition of “extremist activities” is broad and has in recent years been used to describe the work of a wide variety of media outlets, all anti-government and opposition political activity, and posts by private individuals on social media interpreted as criticizing Russia’s war on Ukraine. Official suspicion of any such offense is grounds for adding an individual to a state terror watch list, which results in the freezing of their and their dependents’ bank accounts and is typically accompanied by unemployment and social ostracization.

Sources: Meduza, Novaya Gazeta, Kommersant

On 23 November, President Vladimir Putin signed two bills into law, one on banning “child-free propaganda” (meaning adults actively choosing not to have children) and another on the adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries where it is legal to change one’s gender. Individuals found guilty of the former offense will be subject to fines up to RUB 400,000 (USD 3,900 when the law was passed) and legal entities up to RUB 5 million (USD 47,000). What constitutes “child-free propaganda” is not made explicit in the law. Russian officials have said the purpose of the laws is to raise Russia’s birth rate, defend “traditional values”, and defend the Russian people from, in the words of one of the bill’s authors, “a hybrid war aimed at population reduction.” While authorities have stressed women will not be legally punished for declining to have children, public statements encouraging women to not have, or to have fewer children, will be subject to the law. 

Sources: Meduza, Interfax