Why the Russian authorities are increasingly cracking down on opposition both at home and abroad

Reprisals against Russian opposition politicians are on the rise, whether in the form of invasive police searches of their homes or convictions in absentia to long prison sentences on spurious grounds. In Moscow, the deputy leader of Russia’s liberal Yabloko party was charged with spreading disinformation about the Russian military, while former municipal deputies living in exile abroad have been charged with cooperating with so-called “undesirable organisations”. So why is official pressure on anti-Putin activists being intensified now?

Domestic repression

On 2 October, the deputy chairman of the liberal Yabloko party, Maxim Kruglov, was detained in Moscow and charged with spreading “false information” about the Russian army for two social media posts from over three years ago in which he discussed the Russian military’s massacre of civilians in the Kyiv region town of Bucha in 2022.

Two days later, in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, Dmitry Kisiev, a political strategist and the former chief of staff to one-time presidential hopeful Boris Nadezhdin, was ordered to leave Russia within three days as he no longer was a Russian citizen. A Crimean native, Kisiev received his Russian passport following Russia’s illegal annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, but due to a loophole in the Russian constitution that permits the withdrawal of citizenship not gained at birth, Kisiev had his Russian passport revoked earlier this year at the request of the Federal Security Service.

“I am being deprived of my Russian citizenship on the basis that I negatively affect the political and social stability of society. I am nothing more than a threat to national security,” Kisiev wrote on his Telegram channel.

“What we’re witnessing now is the clearing of the electoral field.”

The Prosecutor General’s Office has also called for the collected works of opposition politician Boris Vishnevsky, a former member of St. Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly, to be designated “extremist material”.

Exiled Russian political scientist Margarita Zavadskaya links the increasing pressure being put on opposition politicians with Russia’s next parliamentary elections, which are due to be held by September 2026.

“What we’re witnessing now is the clearing of the electoral field,” Zavadskaya says, adding that “what Nadezhdin’s staff achieved during last year’s presidential election was, of course, a miracle. It should rightly be considered a political success, which highlights, in particular, how great the desire to participate in politics still is, despite the increasingly dire situation.”

Last year, little known opposition politician Boris Nadezhdin briefly captured the imagination of liberal Russians when he announced his intention to run for president as an anti-war candidate for the Civic Initiative party, inspiring Russians to turn out in droves to add their name to his candidacy application.

Despite his team successfully managing to collect the 200,000 signatures required to register as a candidate, the Central Election Commission rejected his application on spurious grounds. Nadezhdin is currently preparing to run in next year’s State Duma elections.

Transnational repression

The persecution of Russian citizens outside Russia has also continued. On 3 October, a Moscow court sentenced Novaya Gazeta Europe correspondent Ilya Azar and three members of Deputies of Peaceful Russia, an association of anti-war municipal and regional deputies, which was declared an “undesirable organisation” in 2024 — Sergey Vlasov, Igor Glek, and Yelena Rusakova — to four years in a penal colony in absentia.

Pressure has also recently mounted on journalists at Russian independent news outlet Dozhd. One of the channel’s most prominent journalists, Anna Mongayt, was sentenced by a Russian court in absentia to five years in prison for spreading “false information” about the Russian army. Three other Dozhd journalists — Yekaterina Kotrikadze, Valeria Ratnikova, and editor-in-chief Tikhon Dzyadko — are also under investigation under the same charges for reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. All four also had their names added to the Russian government’s register of terrorists and extremists.

Whereas the Russian diaspora was once seen by the Kremlin as a resource, even a source of potential voters, the Russian government’s priority at present is silencing opposition voices abroad, Zavadskaya says, adding that in the past, there were examples of the Russian government “working enthusiastically with the diaspora”, for example, in Latvia.

“Then, after 2014, Russians actively began leaving the country, but at that time there was no targeted repression of expats critical of the government,” she continues.

"If people are placed on the wanted list, it means that their relatives in Russia will be raided at dawn, and not everybody’s relatives are prepared for that."

In the immediate aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, even less attention was paid to Russians abroad, their decision to leave the country widely being seen as an opportunity for the system to “blow off steam” and eradicate any remaining opposition groups inside Russia.

However, the attitude towards the diaspora — especially those who have left Russia since 2022 — soon began to change. Russian courts increasingly placed Russian citizens living abroad on wanted lists and tried them in absentia. The number of such trials jumped from 15 in 2022 to 34 in 2023 and to 80 in 2024.

Propaganda narratives concerning expats also changed — a phenomenon particularly noticeable in the posts of former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, the current deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council. Even in late 2022, Medvedev was vilifying “those who escaped to the far-off lands of cowardly traitors”.

“Transnational repression is a continuation of Russia’s domestic political repression,” Zavadskaya says. “If people are placed on the wanted list, it means that their relatives in Russia will be raided at dawn, and not everybody’s relatives are prepared for that. These are all techniques designed to inflict psychological pressure. Those who have stayed behind in Russia are, of course, still important to those who have left.”

Causes and consequences

The increasing frequency of reports about arrests, detentions, searches and pressure on politicians, journalists and activists raises the logical question: why now?

The increase in political repression may be attributed to the vested interests of law enforcement officers and investigators who seek to open as many cases as possible for dissent in exchange for bonuses and promotions, political scientist Timofey Barsukov explains.

Zavadskaya agrees: “Clearly, sometimes there are specific instructions for certain individuals, but, for the most part, such decisions are left to the discretion of local bureaucrats, who still need to build a career and a name for themselves.”

In Barsukov’s summary, repression against those who do not in fact pose a serious threat to the government arises from the logic that “if a repressive apparatus exists, it should be used”.

According to Zavadskaya, a further reason for the continuing pressure on politicians relates to the Putin regime’s desire to send out a clear message to the masses that even the most public of figures cannot act with impunity.

"When the opportunity presents itself, those with recognition, platforms and reputations will be the favourites to ascend to important political positions."

“It’s a certain kind of motivation— to sit, to stay silent, and not to stick out,” Zavadskaya explains. Despite the growing pressure on politically active Russians, many continue to engage in public action, particularly within Russia itself, whether that be former presidential hopeful Yekaterina Duntsova’s Dawn party or the significant number of lawyers and human rights activists who remain in Russia and continue to defend citizens’ rights.

“Why is it important to save all of these opposition systems and structures, when they now seem pointless?” Barsukov argues. “It is purely because when the opportunity presents itself, those with recognition, platforms and reputations will be the favourites to ascend to important political positions. Gaining experience in political action will largely be useful in the future, when it’s possible to put that experience to use in more democratic conditions.”

In addition, for many lower-level politicians and activists, there is still an opportunity to engage in public political activity within the limits of the law and without touching the issue of the war. This opportunity exists, at least until they attempt to climb further up the career ladder.

“If you look at the municipal elections, what reason is there to discuss the war?” asks Barsukov. “There are more urgent issues such as playgrounds, which fall more readily within the purview of such politicians. To say that there are still opportunities to participate in politics in Russia is certainly true. However, these opportunities are few and far between. Still, it is not pointless: having more capable people is better, at least, than having fewer.”