Yana Lantratova became the new ombudsman in Russia

Tatyana Moskalkova left the post of Commissioner for Human Rights after two terms

The State Duma elected a deputy from A Just Russia , Yana Lantratova , as the new commissioner for human rights in Russia. 301 deputies voted for her candidacy. Tatyana Moskalkova , who held the post of ombudsman since 2016, left the post after two terms - according to the law, she could no longer apply for this post again.

Lantratova has been a State Duma deputy since 2021, and in February 2025 headed the committee for the development of civil society, issues of public and religious associations. Her candidacy was supported by the A Just Russia and United Russia factions. According to media reports, director Nikita Mikhalkov lobbied for Lantratova’s appointment.

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Who is Yana Lantratova

Yana Lantratova was born in 1988 in Leningrad into the family of a military man and a doctor. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of St. Petersburg State University, then received a law degree and completed a master's degree in psychology.

During her student years, Lantratova worked on television, participated in the filming of Channel Five, MTV and Muz-TV programs. Later she became an activist of the Young Guard of United Russia, worked as an assistant to deputy Vitaly Milonov, and then joined the structures of the ONF and the Presidential Council for Human Rights.

In 2012, Vladimir Putin included Lantratova in the Human Rights Council. There she worked on the topics of child protection, “traditional values” and social control. She opposed “Western-style juvenile justice,” proposed testing toys for “psychological effects,” and warned of the danger of “destroying family values.”

After leaving the HRC, Lantratova worked in the presidential administration and the Ministry of Economic Development, and in 2021 she was elected to the State Duma from A Just Russia.

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Lantratova is a co-author of more than 450 bills

During her time in parliament, Lantratova co-authored more than 450 bills. She participated in the development of the law on a unified register of “foreign agents,” supported restrictions against the media for fake news about the Russian army, and was a member of the commission investigating foreign interference.

Lantratova has repeatedly taken initiatives against computer games, cartoons and toys, which, in her opinion, threaten Russian children and “traditional values.”

In 2024, she proposed a ban on "propaganda of destructive ideology ", including quadratism . The deputy also advocated the introduction of mandatory labeling of video games and limiting the distribution of games with “LGBT propaganda and violence.”

After the release of episodes of the animated series “Family Guy” about Chelyabinsk, Lantratova called them “an information war against Russia” and called for limiting the showing of the series.

In addition, after her appeal, Vladimir Makanin’s story “Prisoner of the Caucasus” about a Chechen who was captured by Russian soldiers was removed from the school curriculum.

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Criminal case in Ukraine

After the start of a full-scale war, Lantratova began traveling to Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. In 2024, the Security Service of Ukraine accused her and the wife of A Just Russia leader Sergei Mironov, Inna Varlamova, in absentia of deporting Ukrainian children to territories not controlled by Kiev.

According to Ukrainian investigators, in August 2022, they took two children from the Kherson regional home - 10-month-old Margarita Prokopenko and two-year-old Ilya Vashchenko. The investigation claims that there were no medical grounds for removing the children, and they were later given Russian documents.

Lantratova herself denied the accusations. She stated that since 2014, together with Elizaveta Glinka, she had been evacuating children from the combat zone and helped transport thousands of people for treatment in Russia.

Since 2022, Lantratova has been under sanctions from the EU, USA, UK, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and Ukraine.

What is known about the change of ombudsman

Tatyana Moskalkova has headed the institution of the Commissioner for Human Rights since 2016. Before that, she was a State Duma deputy and a general of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Under Moskalkova, the Ombudsman’s Office actively participated in prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine, dealt with issues of mobilized people and interaction with the families of military personnel.

Sources from RBC and other publications called Lantratova the main candidate for the post of ombudsman. The head of the Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, was also mentioned among the possible contenders.

Photo: Yana Lantratova. Duma.gov.ru, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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