Over Last Six Years, Moscow Spent More than a Billion Dollars to Suppress Protests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 22 – Between 2015 and 2020, the Russian authorities spent at least 7.3 billion rubles (one billion US dollars) on dispersing mass protests, according to a detailed 38-paage report prepared by the Agora Human Rights organization’s project on protests (agora.legal/fs/a_delo2doc/188_file_.pdf).

            This is a minimum figure, Aleksandr Peredruk, the author of the study says, because it is based on the public record which in areas such as this is certainly incomplete. The lawyer adds that this is nonetheless an enormous sum given all the other demands on the Russian budget and the needs of the Russian people (kommersant.ru/doc/4350626).

            But at the same time, Peredruk notes, much of this money was directed to capital purchases of equipment, much of which either has not yet been used at all or is still at the disposal of the authorities to suppress demonstrations in the future.