explainers

Here’s how Russia plans to seize the property of anti-war activists and other supposed public enemies

Source: Meduza

Lawmakers have rolled out the Russian parliament’s latest effort to scare people away from behavior that might undermine the invasion of Ukraine. If adopted, the bill would allow the authorities to confiscate money and property owned by individuals convicted of sharing independent news reports (“disinformation”) about the war in Ukraine, inciting actions that “threaten” the state, assisting foreign states or international organizations in which Russia doesn’t participate, disobeying orders, or deserting the army. 

Developed alongside the Prosecutor General's Office, the Investigative Committee, the Justice Ministry, and the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, the draft legislation was formally introduced in the State Duma on Monday, January 22. Mere hours later, the State Construction and Legislation Committee endorsed the bill and urged lawmakers to adopt its first reading. Every parliamentary political faction except the New People Party supports the legislation, and it has the “unconditional” backing of the government cabinet.

Potentially more frightening than damaging

The draft legislation has significant shock value, but experts who spoke to Meduza said anti-war Russians likely risk more now under existing fines because the bill imposes several limits on what the state can seize (though uneven enforcement makes the future hard to predict). For example, inciting “threats” against the state currently risks a maximum fine of 2.5 million rubles ($28,400), and violating the ban on disseminating “disinformation” about the invasion of Ukraine can cost twice as much. However, according to the Net Freedoms Project, courts have not yet issued large fines to anyone for these offenses. Even journalists now living abroad whose reports clash with the Defense Ministry’s narrative are sentenced in absentia to probation, and their assets are then unfrozen.

Unlike in the Soviet era, property confiscation in Russia today isn’t punitive, at least not officially. The law says the state can confiscate only the money and valuables obtained as a result of committing a relevant crime, along with the items the perpetrator used to facilitate the felony. In most instances of illegal speech, this will almost certainly mean the seizure of electronic equipment like computers, laptops, tablets, cameras, and smartphones. In fact, the police already take these items when investigating offenses involving the “discrediting of the military” and the spread of “disinformation” about the war. (An expert appraisal commissioned by the authorities later determines what isn’t returned.)

The draft law does not lay out a plan to confiscate an individual’s entire property. As human rights attorney Maria Nemova explains, Russian lawmakers excluded asset seizure as a form of punishment in 2003, though officials restored it as a measure of criminal law, three years later. In other words, Russia’s justice system allows confiscations only for the purpose of preventing criminal enrichment and depriving offenders of the means to repeat their crimes.

Aggravating circumstances

Existing laws already allow the seizure of money and valuables in several dozen different cases, including murder, kidnapping, and the nonpayment of wages or pensions, but the caveat here is that the crime must be committed under the aggravating circumstance of “motives of personal gain.”

According to the human rights organization Department One, police officers have the authority to confiscate “other property” if they can’t seize what was directly obtained as a result of the “crime,” but the value of this property cannot exceed the value of the “illegally” obtained money or assets. Also, the new draft law wouldn’t be retroactive, and prosecutors would nevertheless be responsible for proving that flagged property was acquired by criminal means. 

Stricter punishments for crimes committed due to “motives of personal gain” already exist for spreading “disinformation” about the military, but the authorities have rarely pursued these exact charges. Of the 273 felony cases filed so far against “disinformation” offenders, only a handful have involved this aggravating circumstance. Two noteworthy examples include the five years handed down to Colombian national Alberto Enrique Giraldo Saray, as well as opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza’s notorious 25-year prison sentence, whose verdict also includes convictions for alleged treason and collaborating with an “undesirable organization.” The most common motive cited in prosecutions for “disinformation” is “political hatred.”

Lawmakers also propose adding a “personal gain” aggravating qualifier to crimes against the “security” of the state, and they want to make it an aggravating condition if the offender’s motives are political, ideological, religious, or racial hatred (all qualifiers that aren’t currently part of the law). 

The draft legislation drops this language about “motives of personal gain” when it comes to the seizure of money and valuables in cases involving desertion, failure to obey orders, participation in an “undesirable” organization’s activities, and “assisting in the implementation” of decisions by international organizations in which Russia isn’t a member. The law would allow the authorities to confiscate property that is “intended and used” to commit any of these crimes. 

The mysteries of enforcement

How officials would handle these calculations is a mystery, but police agencies have frequently accused anti-war activists (particularly where arson and other sabotage are concerned) of acting with instructions and resources from Kyiv. It’s possible that officials might concoct a sum of money and claim it was the arsonist’s fee, for example. 

Eva Levenberg, who monitors criminal cases for OVD-Info, says the confiscation rules are also dangerous when it comes to cooperating with “undesirable” organizations (especially for senior management) because investigators might reason that a person’s entire income — not just an individual payment — is intended to finance the banned entity’s operations. Current investigative practices suggest that officials in these cases would try to determine what money was acquired “criminally” by obtaining confessions, private correspondence, and other surveillance, says Levenberg.

Attorney Valeria Vetoshkina told Meduza that Russian criminal cases involving bribery allegations observe a “very low standard of proof,” and police sometimes ignore even basic procedural requirements, such as the need for aggravating circumstances when seizing an offender’s property. 

Russians at risk of property seizure (which especially means activists and individuals who write publicly and independently about the war in Ukraine and the Putin regime) probably won’t get any warning before the police come looking for their stuff. People in this situation have a few options — all of them difficult: (1) try to move abroad any money and valuables you can (though involving others could make them criminal accomplices), (2) sell or transfer your property to someone else, or (3) donate your property to a local charity (though this organization might not be allowed to keep the money if there is suspicion that it knew or should have known about the property’s “criminal” origins, and Vetoshkina says “selling” for a symbolic sum is legally safer than making an outright gift).