Federal lawmakers are preparing a bill to increase the maximum sentence for acts of sabotage from 30 to 35 years in prison, wrote Vasily Piskaryov, a member of the State Duma [lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia], adding that harsher punishments are necessary to step up security measures amid the war and a "surge in enemy sabotage activity." Moreover, lawmakers are aiming to toughen the sentences for deliberate destruction or damage to property due to political or ideological hatred, which can carry up to 5 years in prison. Prosecutors often bring such charges against those they suspect of setting fire to draft offices and railway infrastructure.
In April, denunciations by residents of the Primorsky region [Russia's federal subject] led to the deportation of three illegal migrants from Uzbekistan, the regional counter-terrorism commission announced. Reporting on the success of a chatbot created for this purpose, the commission claimed that local residents had submitted more than 100 complaints concerning illegal migrants in the last week of March and the first week of April.
Authorities have deported 636 foreign nationals from the Sverdlovsk region since the beginning of the year. This is 2.5 times more than in the same period last year, when 253 people were deported. This increase may be related to the raids conducted by law enforcement agencies on illegal migrants and recently naturalized citizens who failed to register for military service. By serving the latter with draft notices, the authorities forcibly added 900 naturalized citizens to the military rolls between January 2023 and February 2024, 50 of whom signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense.
Saint Petersburg authorities are using SMS text messages to summon conscription-age residents to the draft office, reports the Idite Lesom! [Flee through the woods/Get lost you all] Telegram channel. Its administrators argue the messages have no legal force and urge recipients to ignore them. Reports of similar messages had previously surfaced in Moscow. The Bumaga [Paper] independent media outlet published a detailed explanation of the rules, which apply to the conscription campaign this spring, and the steps to follow to avoid being called up.
The classified share of the Russian Federation’s budget reached a record 22,6% in 2023, or 7,3 trillion rubles [$77 billion]. For comparison, it was 19,1% and 15,2% in 2022 and 2021, respectively. When planning the 2023 budget, authorities allocated 6,37 trillion rubles [$68 billion]. In the future, the share of classified expenditures is expected to grow: in 2024, it is expected to represent 26,8% of the budget, or 9,8 trillion rubles [$104 billion].
Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans' Affairs Yaroslav Nilov suggested to the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev that facial recognition technology should be used to monitor migrant offenders. To enable identification, registration records on migrant workers maintained by multifunctional public services centers, as well as records from law enforcement databases, should be uploaded into the video surveillance system. As a project pilot region, Nilov suggested Moscow, where video surveillance was adopted early and has been broadly deployed. Going forwards, the project is supposed to be extended to all Russia’s regions where video surveillance is already in place. By the end...
A court in the city of Tver has detained a man accused of fraudulently registering the residency of the brothers Aminjon and Dilovar Islomov, who are facing charges related to the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, in his home. All that is known about the detainee is that his last name is Ashurov, and he holds dual citizenship of Russia and Tajikistan. Ashurov is charged with fraudulent registration and has allegedly admitted his guilt. The Islomov brothers and their father, Isroil, were arrested on March 25 on charges related to an act of terror. Dilovar Islomov was the last owner of the white Renault used by the terrorists in the assault on the concert hall.
A Moscow court has upheld the legitimacy of the arrest of Aminchon Islomov, the brother of the former owner of the white Renault car used by the perpetrators of the Crocus City Hall attack. At the hearing, Islomov once again strongly denied any involvement in the assault. Earlier, his father Isroil had also unsuccessfully contested the legitimacy of his son’s arrest. The Islomovs will be held in pre-trial detention until at least May 22.
On April 13, dozens of wives and mothers of mobilized soldiers across Russia, united by the Put Domoy [The Way Home] Telegram channel, attended the weekly Saturday gatherings to lay flowers to the best-known war monuments and joined the “Empty PotsMarch,” clanging pots and pans on balconies of their apartments in a symbolic protest aimed at the authorities. According to the activists, the rally brought together women in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Voronezh, Kostroma, Novosibirsk, Chelyabinsk, Bryansk, the Leningrad and Sverdlovsk regions, as well as the occupied part of the Donetsk region. The independent media project Okno [Window] interviewed several activists seeking to explore the reasons why they joined the protests. A woman...
Lawmakers have proposed to limit the recovery of funds from bankrupt participants of the war against Ukraine. On April 12, a group of senators and members of the State Duma [lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia] introduced a bill granting the government the authority to exempt military payments from servicemembers’ bankruptcy estates. It would also prohibit financial managers from blocking the bank accounts and cards of citizens who have joined the war effort. However, exemptions would not extend to alimony payments or death gratuities [compensations for losses resulting from the death of a primary wage earner].