Political Repression in Disguise

With Russia’s unpredictable leadership, one thing is certain: It will continue to tighten its grip on its own people and fight its neighbors. Russia’s conflicts and wars are getting bloodier, and more people are being targeted for their political or anti-war views. The authorities are increasingly brazen in resorting to violence and expanding their discretion when applying restrictive legislation against malcontents. Political murders—including those of Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and Alexei Navalny—punctuate Vladimir Putin’s rule. Crucially however, these cases are rare—intended to be widely discussed and widely understood to carry political messaging without explicitly saying so.

Today’s Russian authorities—as opposed to their Soviet counterparts—never admit to punishing their political opponents, and publicly maintain that all citizens are entitled to all the rights and freedoms of a democracy.

The Kremlin does not need many high-profile deaths, arrests, and trials—it needs consistent escalation. Between 2012 and 2023, Russia’s human rights advocates noted the number of people facing charges associated with political dissent has steadily increased. According to OVD-Info, an NGO that monitors repression in Russia, the number of people involved in politically motivated criminal cases grew from 84 in 2012 to 628 at its peak in 2022. That sharp increase in prosecutions was the government’s response to Russian society’s restrained antiwar protests in the immediate aftermath of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The number of these types of cases reverted to pre-war levels in 2023.

The Kremlin knows its audience well: Decades of government-sanctioned violence has taught people to “read” the language of intimidation. This is the essence of the Kremlin’s repression mechanism.

Misapplication of Law

There is an important caveat: To understand the full scope of Russia’s repression, one must understand the sort of charges that are typically brought against the Kremlin’s political opponents. Today’s Russian authorities—as opposed to their Soviet counterparts—never admit to punishing their political opponents, and publicly maintain that all citizens are entitled to all the rights and freedoms of a democracy.

However, Moscow’s rulers today engage in full-scale law misapplication and abuse to achieve plausible deniability of their flagrant human rights violations. Russia’s legal regime is designed to enable Putin to claim he is fighting terrorism, extremism, and corruption—not political dissent. Charges of hooliganism or vandalism are often brought against ordinary protesters. Charges of calls for “extremist activities” are commonly applied against organizers. Other criminal code charges include “the justification of terrorism,” “discrediting the armed forces,” “calls for imposing foreign sanctions against Russian citizens,” and “public dissemination of false information about the use of the Russian armed forces.” Not all these would be acceptable in a modern democracy, but to an uninitiated observer they may sound legitimate.

The description of extremism in Russian law is so vague that authorities have ample discretion to bring indiscriminate charges against anyone who may or may not be a threat. Now, to transfer a small donation to an organization that has been designated as “extremist” or to favorably mention such an organization online is enough to be accused of extremism. Case in point, the late Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF). According to the Russian independent media platform Kholod (Russian for cold), 53 criminal cases were brought against the ACF and individuals connected with it.

Navalny’s senior-level allies have left Russia, but the authorities are looking for his former colleagues, temporary campaign volunteers, those who financially supported the foundation, and those who simply mentioned Navalny on social media.

The Kremlin knows its audience well: Decades of government-sanctioned violence has taught people to 'read' the language of intimidation.

“Despite the fact that the original Russian ACF was disbanded back in 2021 (it continues operations abroad), the Russian authorities keep fabricating criminal charges against it and individuals tied to it,” reports Kholod. “Human rights activists believe that thousands of Russians are at risk.”

Putin’s Repression Reaches Late USSR Levels

Soviet authorities were more honest about their repression than their 21st century successors. They were open about their ideological agenda and used articles in their criminal code that specifically targeted political dissent. In the post-Stalin Soviet Union, those formulations were “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda” or spreading “deliberately false fabrications defaming the Soviet state and social order.” In early post-Soviet Russia, those convicted on such grounds were rehabilitated.

The Russian investigative media outlet Proekt recently analyzed politically motivated prosecutions under “extremism,” “spreading false information,” and related charges. Journalists identified at least 4,667 such cases between 2018 and 2023, during Putin’s second presidential term. More than 5,600 people were defendants in these cases.

The tactic of charging opponents with economic rather than political crimes aims to prevent dissenters from holding a moral high ground in their interactions with the state.

“Some have already been convicted, some are waiting for their fate. But it is unlikely that the latter will be able to avoid a guilty verdict, because the number of acquittals in Russia is much less than 1%,” reports Proekt.

Proekt investigators compared these numbers to the data collected by the Russian State Archives for the periods when the communist rulers Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev were in power (1953-1964 and 1964-1982 respectively). Diverging legal regimes and historical circumstances make direct comparisons between different historical periods tricky. The Soviet Union’s population was almost twice the size of today’s Russia. Given these adjustments, the level of political persecution during Putin’s first term alone (5,613 cases) is comparable to that under Khrushchev and early Brezhnev combined (5,899 from 1956 to 1967) and the number of political prosecutions plummeted during the late Brezhnev era.

Hiding Politics Behind Economics

These numbers are not exhaustive. The real level of persecution cannot be defined in exact terms because the charges used for political reasons include white-collar crimes such as fraud, embezzlement, and abuse of office. The first charges brought against Alexei Navalny, widely considered fabricated, focused on embezzlement. In the late 2000s, Navalny briefly served as a volunteer adviser to a governor of the Kirov province. This was the reason the authorities could tie his acquaintance’s business dealings to his “official” decisions.

The Kremlin’s disguised repression presents a problem even today—especially for those who leave Russia and seek employment or other opportunities in the West.

“Had he not later been prosecuted for extremism, he would not have been included in our statistics,” writes the authors of the Proekt study. “Politically motivated cases under economic articles were not included in this investigation.”

The tactic of charging opponents with economic rather than political crimes aims to prevent dissenters from holding a moral high ground in their interactions with the state. When high-ranking officials or top managers of state-controlled corporations expose the regime’s corruption and violence, accusations of white-collar crimes are the measure of first resort for authorities. The response from the Kremlin and its propagandists would be something along the lines of: “Who is this person to speak? He is a fraud, a crook, a thief.”

This and numerous other cases of misapplying the law would present a major problem during potential future rehabilitation processes. Even though those familiar with how the Russian state deals with dissent understand the process of disguised repression, hundreds (or possibly thousands) of people will have the burden of proving to lawyers and judges that their criminal convictions were politically motivated. Even if a new government claims to break with Putin’s past, genuine change is unlikely unless they reform the country’s bureaucratic and security apparatus and hire new officials.

The Kremlin’s disguised repression presents a problem even today—especially for those who leave Russia and seek employment or other opportunities in the West. These people are often seen as tainted by Russia’s barbaric war against Ukraine and Moscow’s aggressive policies. This is exactly what Putin wants: to have most Russians implicated in the crimes of their leaders. Western migration policies help him succeed; thousands of Russians must clear their names to potential employers and colleagues. People need to provide proof that their criminal convictions were politically motivated. Some members of the LGBTQ+ community, all of whom face persecution in Russia, are refused refugee status or must wait for years; some end up taking their lives.

Welcoming Russians to Western societies is not charity. Given Russia’s internal restrictions and Western visa requirements, only those with enough skills, adaptability, and some means can leave the country. Many are among the most in-demand and adaptable professionals: IT specialists, engineers, researchers; they are scientists, scholars, and teachers. Of course, it is every individual Russian migrant’s responsibility to provide proof of their clear stance on Russia’s aggression. It is important though that their hosting communities are prepared to listen.

Maxim Trudolyubov is a senior fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Editor-at-Large of Meduza. He was the editorial page editor of Vedomosti between 2003 and 2015 and has been a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times International Edition since late 2013. Mr. Trudolyubov writes The Russia File blog for the Kennan Institute and oversees special publications.

Cover photo: Flowers and candles laid at a spontaneous memorial for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in a remote penal colony in Kharp. February 19 2024, Vilnius, Lithuania. Shutterstock/Michele Ursi.