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 

Since the deadly terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in Moscow in March, Russian officials have increasingly infringed on the rights of Central Asian migrants, engaged more frequently in anti-migrant rhetoric, and passed legislation restricting migrant rights in July. The legislation permits police to deport non-citizens without a court order for a wide range of offenses, and deportations in the first seven months of 2024 were up 53 per cent compared to 2023. Attacks and violent raids on businesses where migrants work occur more frequently, and a raid in Yekaterinburg in August where police permitted nationalist volunteers to harass and steal from Central Asian market vendors made national headlines. Nineteen regional authorities across Russia have banned migrants from a wide range of occupations, and increased bureaucracy of migrant-dominated fields like taxi driving have put migrants at higher risk of discrimination. An estimated 3.5 million Central Asian migrants live in Russia, and researchers noted in October the government had stopped providing statistics on migration. 

Sources: iStories, Meduza, International IDEA, 66.ru, Lenta.ru, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 

The budget the Russian government submitted on 30 September to the State Duma for the years 2025-2027 is set to be the most secretive in the country’s post-Soviet history, with an estimated 31.6 per cent of expenditures marked as classified. An estimated 22.6 per cent of the 2023 budget and 26.8 per cent of the 2024 budget were classified. Analysts suggest the increase is an attempt to obfuscate the amount of state spending being directed to the military, and investigative outlet The Bell noted that even once relatively open Russian business media outlets had refrained from discussing the budget in detail. Military expenditures have also historically been a major source of graft and corruption in Russia. 

Sources: The Bell, Meduza 

Russian media and internet censor Roskomnadzor banned and blocked the messaging and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) app Discord on 8 October, citing failure to comply with a 1 October order to remove 947 pieces of content ostensibly related to terrorism, extremists, drugs, or other “illegal information.” Russian law bans the promotion of what regulators deem extremist, terrorist, or drug-related content. Few legal criteria defining these terms exist in Russian law and regulators and prosecutors are given broad leeway. Russian censors have progressively blocked more and more Western-founded apps since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the government encourages Russian users to adopt locally-owned alternatives. 

Source: TASS, Deutsche Welle, International IDEA