On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin put a bill into effect that gives authorities the right to seize assets from anybody found guilty of criticizing the Kremlin’s attack in Ukraine.
After dispatching soldiers to Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow enacted a number of stringent regulations, outlawing criticism of its relentless onslaught and punishing those who openly disagree with it.
Authorities are authorized by law to take money, assets, and belongings from anyone found guilty of criticizing the offensive.
It might go after important Russian exiles who left their nation but retained property there.
The Kremlin claimed that worries that the law would be used improperly were “groundless” and that it had “absolutely” nothing to do with confiscations in the Soviet era.
Its spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Wednesday, “Together with you, we will have the opportunity to evaluate the enforcement of the law in practice.”
He went on to say that raising any concerns in advance would be “groundless”.
Two weeks after the bill was approved by the Russian parliament, the Duma, Putin signed it.
The bill targets “scoundrels and traitors, those who today spit on the backs of our soldiers, who have betrayed their homeland,” according to remarks made by Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin last month.
The hundreds of thousands of Russians who left their nation in opposition to the military campaign are routinely called traitors by Moscow.
The law goes into effect one month before Russia’s presidential election and before the second anniversary of the offensive in Ukraine.
