New legislation allows asset seizures without court order as crackdown on diaspora intensifies

Russian authorities have quietly begun freezing the bank accounts of well-known cultural figures who have left the country, according to reports that have emerged over recent weeks, with the moves apparently being carried out without notification to those affected and based on an unofficial "secret list" compiled by an inter-agency commission. The political scientist Ekaterina Shulman first reported the development on her programme "Status" on 14 July, claiming that the decision to block accounts was being taken by an inter-agency commission tasked with countering the financing of terrorism and extremist activity, and that those affected were primarily associated with the "SlovoNovo" cultural festival and the "Dar" literary prize. The founder of the SlovoNovo festival, Marat Gelman, told the publication Agentstvo on 21 July that approximately 100 people linked to the festival had been affected by the restrictions, though he suggested that the blockages had become a "problem" for only 15 to 20 individuals who retained assets in Russia, adding that some of those affected were "already foreign agents and extremists".

The poet Anna Russ, a laureate of the Debut and Triumph prizes who participated in the SlovoNovo festival in 2025, has publicly stated that her own account had been blocked, while the BBC's Russian service spoke anonymously with two SlovoNovo participants whose accounts were frozen, neither of whom were registered as "foreign agents" or listed in the Rosfinmonitoring register of terrorists and extremists, and neither of whom was aware of any criminal cases against them. One of the BBC's interlocutors said that access to his accounts had been blocked without warning and that he had learned of the restriction "absolutely by chance", underscoring the secrecy with which the measures appear to be being implemented. The inter-agency commission acquired the power to freeze funds in accounts in July 2025, when legislation passed – described by its authors as intended "to strengthen the security of Russia's infrastructure" – permitted the freezing of assets "on suspicion" of involvement in "sabotage activity" without the need for a court order or even a formal criminal investigation.

Advocate Evgeny Smirnov of the "Pervy Otdel" legal group told Agentstvo that, under the law, the commission's decisions should be published, but that this was effectively impossible as the body did not even maintain a website, and he noted that lawyers had been encountering such cases over the past six to seven months. The SlovoNovo festival of Russian culture, which has been held since 2018, was declared a "foreign agent" in Russia in 2025, while its founder, Marat Gelman, has been listed as a "foreign agent" since 2021 and was added to the Rosfinmonitoring register of terrorists and extremists in 2024. The Dar literary prize, founded in 2024, was entered into the "foreign agent" register a year later, further indicating that the cultural initiatives targeted by the account freezes have been systematically designated as hostile by Russian authorities.

In June, Russia adopted legislation permitting the seizure of assets belonging to individuals facing administrative proceedings who have left the country, with the new provisions allowing for the freezing of property and accounts of anyone found to have committed an "offence against the interests" of the state – including insulting the head of state or officials, "discrediting" the armed forces, calling for the introduction of sanctions, or publicly comparing the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany. Under the new law, assets would remain frozen until the individual pays any associated fine, with the legislation set to come into force on 1 September. The measures, which legal observers have characterised as a significant expansion of the state's powers to target exiled dissidents, have prompted concern among Russia's cultural diaspora, many of whom fear that their assets may be frozen without warning or recourse as the Kremlin intensifies its crackdown on those perceived as hostile to the state.