The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, Mariana Katzarova, has warned that a new Russian law imposing sweeping restrictions on Russians living abroad represents an escalation of repression against Government critics and anti-war voices.
Katzarova said the legislation, signed by President Vladimir Putin on 4 August, could leave those affected stripped of a wide range of civil rights and make life outside Russia increasingly unsustainable. She described the measures as a new instrument of repression at home and transnational repression abroad.
Federal Law No. 284-FZ, titled “temporary restrictive measures in respect of persons who are outside the Russian Federation and are evading the execution of punishment”, was signed alongside a companion amendments law. Under the legislation, the Ministry of Justice will maintain a public list of Russians abroad who have an unserved criminal conviction or convictions for certain administrative offences.
Once a person is placed on the list, 14 categories of restrictions can apply. These include the freezing of funds and property, the withdrawal of most consular functions, including issuing and renewing passports and registering marriages and name changes, and refusal of all digital State services. The law also provides for the suspension of licences and accreditation and the annulment of electronic signatures.
Those listed can also face bans on driving, vehicle registration, property transactions, notarial acts, powers of attorney, credit, self-employment and remote banking. Katzarova said the measures were presented as a means of ensuring “the inevitability of punishment”, but warned that their scope could effectively deprive targeted Russians of much of the substance of citizenship.
The restrictions are not limited to criminal convictions. They can also be triggered by administrative offences linked to politically motivated provisions, including rules concerning “foreign agents” and “undesirable organisations”, as well as “war censorship laws” involving “discrediting the armed forces” and “fake news” about the army. They also cover calls for sanctions or “to violate the territorial integrity” of Russia.
Katzarova said Russian courts had used these provisions since 2022 to punish journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, artists and anti-war activists. Vyacheslav Volodin, Chair of the State Duma, has described those targeted as “extremists” and “traitors to the Motherland”, leaving little doubt, in Katzarova’s assessment, about whom the new measures are intended to affect.
The Special Rapporteur also raised concerns about the absence of judicial safeguards in the listing process. No court decides who is placed on the list, she said, while individuals are neither notified nor given an opportunity to be heard. Although the measures are described as “temporary”, the law sets no time limit for their application.
Katzarova argued that the legislation amounts to a targeted punishment of anti-war voices and Government critics “en masse”, designed to make life outside Russia unsustainable. Those affected, she said, retain the duties of citizenship while losing most of its content, rendering them “de facto stateless”.
She called on Russian authorities to repeal the law and quash convictions handed down in absentia in politically motivated cases, stressing that Russia remains bound by its international human rights law obligations.
She also urged countries hosting Russians at risk to ensure that they can obtain and renew identity and travel documents, regularise their residence and retain access to banking and employment. States, she said, should not forcibly return those at risk or give legal effect to designations made under the new law.
“Full protection to Government critics, human rights defenders and anti-war voices in exile is paramount for the survival of Russian civil society,” Katzarova said.
