Russian 2022 war censorship laws

• 1. Introduction

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  On the 4th of March 2022, the Russian State Duma adopted Federal Laws No.31-FZ and No.32-FZ. These two laws were signed by the president on the same day. They made it a crime to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a war. They also prohibited spreading what officials called "unreliable information" about military operations, or calling for sanctions against Russia. By August 2024, more than 10,000 cases had been opened under these statutes. The people charged include journalists, musicians, poets, city council members, and a pediatrician reported by a patient's parent. The laws were applied with crushing force against some Russians. For others who made equally critical statements, there were no consequences at all.

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• 2. The Law's Architecture

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  Federal Law No.32-FZ supplemented Russia's Criminal Code with three new articles. Article 207.3 set a maximum of fifteen years imprisonment for spreading "unreliable information" about the Russian Armed Forces and their operations. Article 280.3 set up to five years for "discrediting" the forces, including any statement that their use was not in Russia's interests. Article 284.2 carried up to three years for calling for sanctions against Russia, its citizens, or its legal entities. The companion administrative law, No.31-FZ, added articles 20.3.3 and 20.3.4, establishing large fines for the same categories of speech.

  Russian courts follow what authorities call the Dadin scheme. A first offense draws an administrative fine. Repeat violations trigger criminal prosecution. Spreading unreliable information about military operations is an exception: it carries criminal liability from the first instance. Russian law enforcement also treats any internet publication as a "continuing violation." This means people can be prosecuted for posts made before the laws came into effect. The statute of limitations begins not when material is posted, but when it is removed from the internet.

  On the 25th of March 2022, Federal Laws No.62-FZ and No.63-FZ extended the punishments to cover the extraterritorial operations of other state bodies. The expanded laws applied to the National Guard, the FSB, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations. They also covered the General Prosecutor's Office, the Investigative Committee, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  On the 30th of May 2022, the Olovyanninsky District court handed down the first criminal conviction under article 207.3. The defendant, Pyotr Mylnikov, had posted documents in a Viber chat about mobile crematoriums owned by the Ministry of Defence. The court found him guilty of spreading unreliable information about the armed forces and sentenced him to a fine of 1,000,000 rubles.

  On the 18th of March 2023, Federal Laws No.57-FZ and No.58-FZ made a third expansion. The amendment extended coverage to volunteers and mercenaries aiding the armed forces. Wagner Group fighters were now among those whose activities critics could no longer question publicly. This was a striking inversion, given that mercenarism is itself prohibited under article 359 of Russia's criminal code. The 2023 amendments also raised the maximum sentence for discrediting the armed forces to seven years. Calls to impose sanctions could now bring up to five years in prison.

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• 3. The Media Exodus

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  Over 150 journalists had left Russia by the 7th of March 2022, three days after the laws came into effect. Among the Russian media outlets that stopped covering the invasion were Colta.ru, Snob online magazine, Znak.com, The Bell, and Novaya Gazeta. The independent television channel Dozhd, also known as TV Rain, suspended operations entirely. Radio Liberty announced it would stop operating inside Russia but would continue covering events in Ukraine from abroad.

  On the 7th of April 2022, journalists who had departed Novaya Gazeta announced the launch of Novaya Gazeta Europe. Its editor-in-chief, Kirill Martynov, stated the new outlet would be independent from Novaya Gazeta "both legally and in practice." The newsroom was staffed by journalists who had already left Russia.

  Maxim Katz, creator of the YouTube channel bearing his name, faced criminal charges alongside Anastasia Bryukhanova of channel "Objective." The cases against them concerned allegations about civilian deaths in Bucha, Ukraine. Israel-based animator Oleg Kuvaev also faced consequences after episode 160 of his webseries Masyanya compared Putin to Adolf Hitler and implied he should undergo seppuku. Roskomnadzor banned the episode. Two days later, a denial-of-service attack struck Kuvaev's websites, though the series remained on YouTube. The following episode explained to children that what they had witnessed was not to be spoken aloud. Speaking of it, it warned, would draw "the Russian authorities' anger and lust for administrative violence."

  The former publisher of Meduza was charged in absentia. So were Russian-Canadian activist Pyotr Verzilov and Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen, both in connection with their coverage of the Bucha massacre. Alsu Kurmasheva was sentenced in absentia to six-and-a-half years in July 2024. The charge concerned a book she had edited, "Saying No To War," featuring stories of forty Russians who had opposed the invasion.

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• 4. Individual Prosecutions

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  On the 16th of March 2022, Russian socialite and food blogger Veronika Belotserkovskaya became the first person charged under the fakes law. Six days later, television journalist Alexander Nevzorov was charged after publishing information that Russian forces had shelled a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Nevzorov said Putin's "regime is not going to spare anyone, and that any attempts to comprehend the criminal war in Ukraine will end in prison."

  Alexei Gorinov, a then-60-year-old deputy at Moscow's Krasnoselsky district council, made his remarks at a council meeting on the 15th of March 2022. He was an engineer, lawyer, and human rights defender. At the meeting he asked: "How can we talk about a children's drawing competition, when children are dying every day?" He maintained his innocence throughout his trial, citing his constitutional right to free expression. A Ministry of Justice forensic expert testified that only one sentence in his speech contained a factual claim; the rest was personal opinion. Despite this, Judge Olesya Mendeleyeva convicted Gorinov on the 8th of July 2022 and sentenced him to seven years. The judge ruled that his motivation was "based on political hatred." She also ruled that Gorinov had led Russians to "feel anxiety and fear" about the invasion. At the time, Gorinov was the first of at least 50 Russian public figures to face criminal proceedings under the law. On the 29th of November 2024, he received an additional three years on charges of "advocating terrorism."

  Yuri Shevchuk, leader of the rock band DDT, was charged on the 18th of May 2022 after a concert in Ufa. At the concert he said: "The motherland, my friends, is not the president's ass that has to be slobbered and kissed all the time." He continued: "The motherland is an impoverished old woman at the train station selling potatoes." The case was sent to the Sovietsky district court in Ufa, then referred to the Dzerzhinsky district court in Saint Petersburg. It was returned twice on procedural grounds. The Sovietsky district court ultimately ruled in August 2022 that Shevchuk was guilty of discrediting the armed forces. The court found it unimportant that his statement made no reference to the military. His appeal was dismissed in December 2022.

  On the 16th of November 2023, artist Aleksandra Skochilenko was sentenced to seven years for replacing supermarket price tags with antiwar slogans in 2022. On the 28th of December 2023, poets Artyom Kamardin and Yegor Shtovba were sentenced for reading anti-war poems in Moscow. They had given the performance in September 2022. Kamardin received seven years; Shtovba five-and-a-half. One day later, a Russian veteran of the war in Ukraine received seven-and-a-half years in prison. His crime was murdering a man who had criticized his participation in the invasion. In November 2024, a pediatrician received five-and-a-half years after a patient's mother reported her for allegedly making pro-Ukrainian comments. No audio or video recording existed to verify the claim. More than 6,000 people signed a petition calling for her release.

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• 5. The Untouchables

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  Political scientists favored by the Kremlin, including Sergey Karaganov, openly used the word "war" to describe the invasion without facing consequences. The laws had effectively banned that term in favor of "special military operation." Former FSB officer and pro-war military blogger Igor Girkin was far more blunt.

  On the 13th of May 2022, Girkin accused Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of "criminal negligence" in conducting the invasion. On the 23rd of August, he called President Putin a clown. After Ukrainian counteroffensives in September 2022 against Kherson and Kharkiv, Girkin called for Shoigu to be executed by firing squad. He stated publicly that the war "will continue until the complete defeat of Russia" and that Russia had "already lost." Pro-Kremlin war journalist Alexander Kots also went unprosecuted. Kots had publicly stated that "We need to do something about the system where our leadership doesn't like to talk about bad news." Ultra-nationalists and pro-war activists were considered untouchable because they were protected by high-ranking members of the military and intelligence services.

  On the 5th of October 2022, Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov said some high-ranking Russian commanders should be shot by firing squad. On the 23rd of June 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the mercenary group Wagner, released a video about the invasion. He said the government's justifications for the war "were based on lies" and accused the Defense Ministry of "trying to deceive society and the president." He also said the war was not needed to "demilitarize or denazify Ukraine." On the 13th of September 2022, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told the Duma the "special military operation" had "turned into a full-fledged war." State Duma Defense Committee chairman Andrey Kartapolov called publicly on the Defense Ministry to "stop lying" about the situation in Ukraine. None of these statements led to prosecution.

  In December 2022, St. Petersburg municipal deputy Nikita Yuferev formally asked authorities to investigate President Putin himself for using the word "war." Yuferev posted on Twitter: "Several thousand people have already been convicted for such words about war." He continued: "I've asked the authorities look into Putin for spreading fakes about the army." Girkin was eventually arrested on the 21st of July 2023. He became the rare ultra-nationalist to face any consequences under laws he had so publicly violated.

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• 6. International Response

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  On the 14th of March 2022, Amnesty International published a statement condemning the laws adopted ten days earlier. The organization urged Russian authorities to allow peaceful anti-war protests, release all detained protesters, and "lift all restrictions on independent media." Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, described the laws as part of Russia's "ruthless effort to suppress all dissent." His concern was that the Russian population could not access any information that contradicted the Kremlin's narrative about the invasion of Ukraine.

  On the 1st of March 2022, Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor threatened to block Wikipedia over its Russian-language article about the invasion. On the 4th of April, the regulator asked Wikipedia's administrators to remove five specific articles. The list included entries on the Battle of Kyiv, the Mariupol hospital airstrike, the Mariupol theatre airstrike, and the Bucha massacre. That same day, Civic Chamber member Ekaterina Mizulina asked the Prosecutor General's Office to investigate Wikipedia for criminal conduct. On the 26th of April, a Russian court fined the Wikimedia Foundation 3 million rubles for failing to remove seven articles about the invasion. On the 11th of March 2022, Belarusian political police had already arrested prominent Belarusian Wikipedia editor Mark Bernstein for spreading "anti-Russian materials." The day before his arrest, a Russian Telegram channel had published Bernstein's personal details.

  On the 11th of February 2025, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Russia's 2022 wartime censorship laws. The court found they violated the right to freedom of expression. That same month, the mother of a Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine was charged under those laws. She had written that "young guys are being put in the ground when they shouldn't be."

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