Kremlin Classifies Information Not Only about Demography but Also about Russian Foreign Policy

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – Moscow’s decision not to publish demographic data has attracted enormous attention (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/07/to-hide-russias-demographic-decline.html), but its almost simultaneous decision to do the same thing about foreign policy (publication.pravo.gov.ru/document/0001202506240053) has not.     

            That is especially unfortunate given that much of the demographic data Rosstat will now stop publishing can be garnered, albeit with difficulty elsewhere, and because the classification of information on Russian foreign policy will allow Moscow to charge ever more people with breaking the law if they publish it (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=686E006E85A6E).

            On June 24, eight days before Rosstat’s decision was announced, Vladimir Putin signed a decree throwing the cloak of secrecy over all information about the tactics of Moscow’s foreign policy. It is sweeping in its scope and will likely soon become the basis for new charges against journalists and scholars.

            Among the kind of information now declared secret are “reports about issues of foreign policy, foreign economic activity, foreign trade, scientific-technical links which reveal the strategy and tactics of the foreign policy of the Russian Federation,” a ban that can be used to suppress any discussion of mobilization for Putin’s war or his diplomatic activity generally.