From here we will threaten... Poland?

The Duma has received a bill allowing the president to send troops to other countries under the pretext “they don’t abandon their own”

Any use of armed forces loves the effect of surprise. Like a bolt from the blue, Bill No. 1181659-8 arrived in the Duma from the government, proposing to give the President of the Russian Federation the authority to make decisions on the involvement of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation to protect Russian citizens “arrested, detained, or subject to criminal or other prosecution” abroad.

The government (project No. 1181659-8 signed by Mikhail Mishustin) is not a group of incomprehensible deputies and not the legislative assembly of a subject of the Federation, that is, its approval is practically guaranteed, as Vyacheslav Volodin promised, “on a priority basis.”

Changes are proposed to be made to only two articles of the laws on citizenship: dated April 28, 2023 No. 13 8-FZ and on defense dated May 31, 1996 No. 61-FZ. Meanwhile, the adoption of the law will mean the establishment by the Russian Federation of a new type of casus belli (cause for war), and it is not in the UN Charter - such issues must be resolved diplomatically.

We are not talking about “compatriots”, but specifically about citizens of the Russian Federation, including those who could receive Russian passports in the unrecognized republics of the former USSR.

It is obvious that the amendments do not mean mass persecution, but “single-piece” persecution. In this case, the president (within the framework of the project) does not even need the consent of the Federation Council.

Amendments to laws are adopted when practice reveals recurring situations that require changes in legislative regulation. But the explanatory note to the law does not answer the question of what special happened recently.

The project is so unexpected and, despite its brevity, ornate, that State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, in the information published on the Duma website, stated its content inaccurately. Let's compare.

Volodin said that we are talking about Russians “arrested, detained or subjected to criminal or other prosecution by decisions of foreign courts or international judicial bodies in which Russia is not involved.”

The bill refers to citizens of the Russian Federation “who are arrested (held), subject to criminal or other prosecution in pursuance of decisions of courts of foreign states vested with powers in the field of criminal proceedings by other foreign states without the participation of the Russian Federation , and (or) international judicial bodies whose competence is not based on an international treaty of the Russian Federation or a resolution of the United Nations Security Council.”

The draft deals with situations where a citizen of the Russian Federation is detained in one state, and his extradition to its jurisdiction is demanded by another state with which Russia does not have an extradition agreement (and the Russian Federation has recently broken such agreements with almost all European countries).

A typical example is Poland’s pending extradition of Russian archaeologist Alexander Butyagin to Ukraine, where he is accused of illegal excavations in Crimea. It seems that this story was the trigger for the bill, but in this case the cause and effect are too different in scale.

It is also possible that the project “for growth” will be adopted in such a passing way: in the context of the continuation of the special operation in Ukraine, there will apparently not be enough armed forces to introduce them into other countries.

FROM THE EDITOR
Well, we shouldn’t forget about the constantly and increasingly frequent “incidents” with tankers transporting Russian oil—there are arrests of crew members involved. In this regard, it is worth listening to the head of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, who just the other day promised military convoys for ships.