Russia’s wanted list. An updated and user‑friendly database

Since the beginning of 2024, Mediazona has been collecting all the wanted notices from the database on the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs’ website—and making it convenient for search. We’ve been writing about our findings in several feature articles, but from now on, the searchable database will live on this page. And we will try to update it and cover the most significant developments once every six months.Latest update: October 2024.

What we’ve published before

Mediazona first revealed a user-friendly searchable database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs wanted list in February 2024. Back then, we were able to establish that Russia is actively seeking for “foreign mercenaries” in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We also found dozens of European politicians and officials wanted on criminal charges in Russia, including the Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.

Several months later we revealed that another country leader—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—was added to the list, but the notice was quickly removed after our publication. The most probable explanation for this strange glitch was that it was a local initiative of the police department in occupied Donetsk.

Latest update: artists and foreign journalists (October 2024)

Overall statistics

From May to October 2024, 16,302 notices were added to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ website, with 13,505 individuals being sought in connection to criminal cases (the rest are missing persons).

The number of notices which were deleted (after our initial publication) has risen from 7,477 to 19,765. This does not mean a wanted person has been detained or the criminal charges have been dropped. We don’t always know the exact reasons for why this is happening.

The people who were added to the database in the latest update (since May 2024) are marked with a plus sign (+). The ones who were removed since the first time we published the database are marked with an X.

Wanted celebrities

Among the recent additions to the wanted list, the one that probably stood out the most is singer Monetochka (Elizaveta Gyrdymova). Her name appeared on the list in mid-October, but it didn’t come as a surprise. The Moscow Prosecutor’s Office announced a criminal case against Monetochka a month and a half earlier. She is accused of “evading the duties of a foreign agent.”

Roughly at the same time, a similar criminal case was opened against another famous Russian artist, rapper Morgenshtern. But his name has yet to appear on the wanted list.

The investigators are still adding wanted notices for foreigners who are fighting for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In the last six months, 114 new names appeared in this category, with the majority (77) being from the so-called “Rybar List”—that is, people whose last names, first names, and dates of birth without photographs and any biographical details were posted back in the spring of 2022 by a former employee of the Russian Defence Ministry’s press service on his channel Rybar. The Investigative Committee has been slowly going through the “Rybar List” ever since. These foreign nationals are put on the wanted list with no photos, their names are often misspelled.

In September 2024, wanted notices for seven foreign journalists appeared simultaneously on the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ website: three Ukrainian, two British, two Italian, and one German. The records indicate that these people were put on the wanted list by the FSB border control department in the Kursk region—for illegal crossing of the border to the territories occupied by Ukraine.

Soon, the record for Nick Paton Walsh, a UK citizen who works for CNN, was removed from the wanted list, with reasons remaining unknown.

The database

Just like before, we are publishing a complete searchable list of people who are wanted in Russia. You can search names in the database as a whole or in particular categories. The categories aren’t exhaustive, this effort aims to uncover and document politically motivated legal actions. If you notice something interesting that has escaped our attention, please contact Mediazona.

And a reminder: not appearing in the search results on either our tool or the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ website does not assure that a person is free from any criminal cases. This situation is akin to not having a certificate of no criminal record—it does not confirm the absence of legal actions.