The Putin-Bush war on terror is helping the Kremlin arrest political opponents with no ties to terrorism
In 2022, Russia was convicted of terrorism at 40 (!) times more people than in the years preceding Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012 Research of the Re:Russia project - on how the fight against terror turned into an instrument of repression
Session of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow on the arrest of one of the alleged perpetrators of the terrorist attack in the Crocus City Hall by Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, March 24, 2024Since the early 2000s, the Russian authorities have declared the fight against terrorism as their central task. In the 2010s, terrorist activity in the country began to decline, while the number of people convicted of terrorism began to grow rapidly after Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012. Thanks to the expansion of "terrorist" articles in the Criminal Code, the secrecy of investigations and the loyalty of the courts, the fight against terrorism has become an industry of repression. Increasingly, it was used to suppress and intimidate Muslim activists, Crimean Tatars, human rights defenders, opponents of the war in Ukraine and other disloyal groups. If in the mid-2000s up to 40% of sentences under terrorist articles accounted for charges of belonging to a terrorist organization, in the early 2020s, especially after the outbreak of a full-scale war, the main val of cases fell on the accusations for "words" - justification or propaganda of terrorism - that have become an instrument of prosecution. From 2012 to the first half of 2023 - in the absence of a real wave of terror - 3,373 people were convicted of "terrorism." And in 2022, the number of convicts under such articles (669 people) was 40 times higher than the average in 2009-2011. The history of how Russia fought terrorism and what it led to is investigated by the Re:Russia project. "Medusa" with the permission of Re:Russia publishes this material in full.
Rubber anti-terror pentagon
The Crocus City Hall attack was the biggest failure of the Kremlin and Russian law enforcement agencies in the fight against terrorism since the early 2000s. Then, after a series of terrible terrorist attacks - explosions of residential buildings in 1999 (314 dead), the capture of more than 900 hostages in the Theater Center on Dubrovka (from 130 to 170 dead) in 2002 and more than 1100 - in the Beslan school (315 dead) in 2004 - the fight against terror was proclaimed the central task of law enforcement agencies and almost the entire state. The resources allocated to this fight have steadily increased, and the powers of law enforcement agencies have been expanding.
After 2004, however, as the separatist resistance in Chechnya was destroyed, terrorist activity began to decrease. In March 2010, suicide bombers were doubled in the Moscow subway (36 dead), and in January 2011, a suicide bomber was bombed at Domodedovo airport (37 dead). Finally, in April 2017, an explosion occurred in the St. Petersburg subway, which claimed the lives of 67 people. At the same time, the number of persons accused of terrorism grew almost exponentially in the 2010s. It could be assumed that the decline in terrorist activity is a consequence of the increase in the number of convicted terrorists. However, the analysis of the statistics of persecution under terrorist articles rather indicates that the fight against terrorism was subject to departmental and political logic, increasingly breaking away from reality and replacing it with propaganda frames and tasks of persecuting "enemies of the regime".
As can be seen from the diagram below, a sharp increase in the number of convicts under terrorist articles began immediately after Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. In 2009-2011, an average of 16 people per year were sentenced under Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("terrorist act"), while in 2012-2013 the average number of such sentences increased to 28. But the real scale of the campaign for landing "terrorists" gained after new articles and compositions were introduced into the Criminal Code in 2013 ("training for the purpose of engaging in terrorist activities", Art. 205.3; "organization of a terrorist community and participation in it," Art. 205.4; "organization of the activities of a terrorist organization and participation in the activities of such an organization", Art. 205.5).
Number of persons convicted under terrorist articles, 2009-2023
The expansion of the "anti-terrorist" norms of the Criminal Code began in 2002, when article 205.1 on "promoting terrorism" was introduced after the terrorist attack in Dubrovka. In 2006, after the tragedy in Beslan, the law "On Countering Terrorism" was adopted, and "public calls for terrorist activities" and "public justification of terrorism" were added to the "terrorist" compositions of the Criminal Code (Art. 205.2). However, the first sentences under this article appeared much later. Shortly after the annexation of Crimea, the punishment for committing terrorist crimes, as well as for the financing of terrorism, was increased to 15-20 years of imprisonment. In 2016, criminal liability for "failure to report a terrorist crime" was introduced, the terms for "organization" and "participation" were tightened; in addition, the lower age limit of criminal liability for terrorist crimes was expanded to 14 years. In 2017, its "propaganda" was added to the "public justification of terrorism."
As a result, at the moment, rubber anti-terrorist legislation covers five main plots:
- the actual implementation of the terrorist attack (Art. 205);
- assistance to a terrorist attack, as well as the decline, involvement and training of terrorist activities (Art. 205.1, 205.3);
- involvement in the terrorist community (Art. 205.4, 205.5);
- non-report on the preparation of a terrorist attack (Art. 205.6);
- public incitement to terrorism or justification of terrorism (Art. 205.2).
This rubber anti-terrorism pentagon allowed the security forces to use accusations of terrorism out of any connection with the real or alleged events of the crime - the terrorist attacks themselves. That is, it made it possible to imprison those whom the security forces considered "prone" to terrorism, and provided a wave of cases under terrorist articles, thus justifying budgets and maintaining the impression of the severity of the terrorist threat in the context of its actual reduction.
Shaft and fashion: how the number of terrorists increased 40 times
Amendments to the Criminal Code in 2013 opened the gates to an explosive increase in the number of people convicted under terrorist articles. In the year of the first invasion of Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea compared to the previous year, it doubled and amounted to 58 people, and in 2016 it reached 167, that is, it exceeded the average figures of 2009-2011 by 10 times. At the same time, 40% of convicts were charged with belonging to a terrorist organization.
The mid-2010s were the era of hunting potential terrorists in the Muslim environment. In fact, expanded anti-terrorist legislation and its free interpretation allowed law enforcement agencies to record in terrorists supporters of various non-conventional, from their point of view, currents of Islam. In the official list of the FSB out of 50 banned terrorist organizations, 36 are somehow connected with Islam. It is this mechanism that ensures an increase in the number of people convicted under terrorist articles during this period. Back in 2003, the Supreme Court recognized Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami as a terrorist organization, and in 2010 the mass persecution of its members and persons associated with it began. As of March 2024, according to Memorial, at least 320 people were being prosecuted on this basis, 271 people were convicted, 115 of them for terms of 15 years or more.
After the annexation of Crimea, this model proved to be a convenient tool for the prosecution of the Crimean Tatars: they were also accused of "participation" in the activities of "Hizb ut-Tahrir" or of "organizing" this activity (the organization is not prohibited in Ukraine). At the same time, evidence in such cases was usually the testimony of "classified witnesses", which were secret service officers or police officers. In turn, public doubts about the justice of such sentences began to be interpreted as a justification of terrorism - the terms for this were received, in particular, by Bashkir politician Airat Dilmukhamedov and human rights activist Bakhrom Khamroev (anti-extremist legislation is being built in Russia according to the same ringed scheme).
In 2018, the number of convicts under terrorist articles doubled again compared to 2016 (336 people). At the same time, the share of convicts under the basic article punishing the actual commission of the terrorist attack (Article 205, Parts 1-3) decreased to 7%. The chart below shows how the distribution of sentence plots has changed over the past 10 years. In 2014, 50% of convicts are sentenced under the basic article on "terrorist act", another 30% - under the article on "aiding", and only 20% - under the articles on appeals and justification of terrorist activities and on involvement in the terrorist community. The mid-2010s are the peak of the fashion for conviction for involvement in the terrorist community, the relevant articles 205.4 and 205.5 now account for 40% of sentences. At the same time, the proportion of sentences for failure to report a terrorist attack (in the absence of the terrorist attacks themselves) is growing rapidly.
Shares of various plots in terrorist sentences, 2014-2022, %
Finally, in the early 2020s, the proportion of those convicted of involvement in terrorist communities is falling, and the attention of law enforcement officers is shifting to "words", that is, to the compositions of "public justification of terrorism" and "calls for terrorism". The share of this plot now exceeds 40% of the total number of sentences, another quarter of sentences relate to "facilitation" and "involvement", while the basic article condemning the implementation of a terrorist attack accounts for 2% of all anti-terrorist sentences. The total wave of sentences for terrorism in 2022 doubles again by 2018. And to the level of 2009-2011, the number of people convicted of "terrorism" increased 42 times in 2022.
Wartime: anti-terror as an instrument of terror
Switching fighters against terrorism to "words", that is, persecution for statements, reflects the political dynamics of pre-war and especially wartime, when political persecution becomes the main concern of the regime, pushing the actual fight against terrorism into the background, even if it is fictitious. Since 2010, the number of sentences under Article 205.2 ("public acquittal" or "propaganda" of terrorism) has increased by one and a half times annually, and as a result, the number of convicts under it in 2022 (274 people) increased 27 times compared to 2014. Mediazona reports that "in Russia, more than 350 criminal cases have been transferred to the courts under Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code on the justification of terrorism for two years in a row." It is only competitiond by Article 207.3 on "discrediting" the army. Article 205.2 has finally become an instrument of political persecution.
For example, in 2020, the 2nd Western District Military Court found guilty and sentenced Aitahaji Khalimov to three and a half years in the colony for saving (not even publishing) several videos with footage of the chronicle of the first Chechen war on his VKontakte page. Mikhail Kriger was convicted for an approving comment on the actions of Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who blew himself up in the FSB building in Arkhangelsk, Yaroslav Shirshikov received two years of the colony for a comment on the death of the propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky, and two years of the colonyman Bondarenko received for an approving comment on the explosion on the Crimean Bridge. Sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky was sentenced to five years in prison for the same. But, of course, the most famous and absurd of this series is the case of Zhenya Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk. For the play "Finist Clear Falcon" in 2022 they received the "Golden Mask", and in 2023 - a criminal case and almost a year of imprisonment in a pre-trial detention center.
Since 2019, human rights activists have been talking about an increase in the number of criminal cases of propaganda of terrorism in places of detention: in most cases they affected representatives of religious minorities, OVD-Info notes in its review of the dynamics of political repression in 2023.
In 2023, similar cases began to be initiated against other political prisoners: the "justification of terrorism" within the framework of conversations with cellmates was imputed, for example, to Alexei Gorinov, previously convicted of anti-war statements, and the anarchist-mathematician Azat Miftakhov. In other words, the article on "justification of terrorism" has become a tool for extending the sentences of imprisonment for those whom the authorities do not want to release from prison, which is enforced with the help of inmates dependent on the administration.
The second innovation of wartime was the requalification of direct-acting anti-war actions into terrorism. As we noted above, the share of cases under the main "terrorist" article 205, parts 1-2 ("terrorist act") has steadily decreased over the past ten years. However, recently Mediazona published a schedule, which shows that in 2023 under this article, the courts received three and a half times more cases than in previous years (statistics of the Judicial Department for the whole of 2023 are not yet available, and most of these cases will be reflected in the statistics of sentences of 2024).
The main factor of this jump was the qualification of arson attacks on military registration and enlistment offices as terrorist acts. As of April 1, 2023, Mediazone was aware of 113 arson since the beginning of the war (39 before the start of mobilization and 74 after). The arson of the "first wave" was initially qualified as "destruction or damage to property" (Art. 167, h. 2 of the Criminal Code), referring to their rather symbolic character. However, the "vegetarian" sentences under this article (up to five years) did not work on the task of intimidation. Already at the end of spring, these acts of protest against the war began to qualify as terrorist attacks. Many cases filed under Article 167 have been reclassified to Article 205.
The first "terrorist" sentence for arson of the military registration and enlistment office was delivered in January 2023: the Central District Military Court sentenced Vladislav Borisenko from Nizhnevartovsk to 12 years in a maximum security colony. The culmination of cruelty and an act of public intimidation was the case of Alexei Nuriev and Roman Nasryev, who received 19 years in prison each in the case of arson of the military enlistment office.According to the database of politically motivated criminal prosecutions of OVD-Info, today article 205 is charged with 51 defendants for arson or attempted arson of the military registration and enlistment office (or other government buildings). In total, during the two war years, the project counted 66 politically motivated charges under article 205 (as terrorist acts, the authorities also qualify the arson of relay cabinets on the railway and the arson of a paddy wagon).
Moreover, in 2023, the authorities prepared for further expansion of "anti-terrorist" terror. On May 9, 2023, amendments came into force, according to which under Article 205, Part 1 (without qualifying signs) it is possible to obtain up to 20 years of imprisonment (previously there were 15). And since November 27, 2023, all nine district military courts have been empowered to consider terrorism cases - instead of four, as it was before. Thus, the authorities prepared in advance the capacity to further increase the flow of terrorist cases.
As can be seen from this review, after Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012, the fight against terrorism in Russia has turned into a full-fledged industry of expanding repression, very remotely and hypothetically related to real terrorist activity. In total, from the beginning of 2012 to the first half of 2023 - in the absence of a significant wave of terrorism - 3,373 people were convicted throughout the "bush" of "terrorist" article 205. The secrecy of investigations, the full loyalty of the courts and the lack of independent control do not even allow an approximate assessment of the effectiveness and validity of these prosecutions. However, numerous facts of forgery, provocations, torture and coercion of witnesses to stitement indicate that the growing wave of terrorist cases is designed to both exaggerate the terrorist threat and to mystify the effectiveness of countering it.
In addition, the fight against terrorism was obviously used for political purposes - to repress and intimidate politically disloyal communities (Muslim activists, Crimean Tatars, human rights defenders expressing doubts about the validity of sentences, opponents of the war in Ukraine, left-wing youth movements). It is not surprising that this industry in the fight against imaginary terrorism has turned into a complete misunderstanding of the changed map of terrorist threats and the helplessness of law enforcement officers in the face of numerous warnings about the upcoming real terrorist act.