Moscow has Charged 9,000 Russians with Extremist Crimes over Last Decade, Draft Anti-Extremism Strategy Document Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – The Russian interior ministry has posted online a draft project of a new Strategy for Countering Extremism. A replacement for the 2019 measure, the draft focuses on Ukraine, migrants, and foreign use of ethnic and religious groups to destabilize the Russian Federation.

            To a large extent, the new draft simply sums up what Putin officials have been saying over the last several years, but it does provide statistics that highlight just how sweeping Moscow’s counter-extremism program has become. (For a summary and discussion of the new draft, see sova-center.ru/misuse/news/lawmaking/2024/07/d50188/.)

            Over the last ten years, the draft says, “Russian law enforcement organs” have identified and brought charges against Russians for extremist behavior. They have brought criminal charges against 9,000 people. (The difference between these two figures likely reflects the fact that some have been charged with more than one crime.)

            Moreover, SOVA says the document shows, Russian courts have banned more than 70 organizations and identified more than 170 foreign structures as “undesirable.” The authorities have also declared “more than 3,000” texts “extremist” and thus to be excluded from circulation in the Russian Federation.