The Russian President has expanded the list of state secrets. Now, information on international trade, scientific developments, and even preparations for mobilization can be considered secret.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree significantly expanding the list of information that can be classified as a state secret. The new restrictions will affect foreign policy, international trade, economics, science and mobilization preparation, allowing the Kremlin to exert even tighter control over the information space amid the protracted war against Ukraine.
This was reported by Bloomberg.
The document was published on the official portal of the Russian government. According to it, any dissemination of such information without the sanction of the authorities can be considered a threat to national security and punishable by imprisonment for up to eight years.
According to Russian analyst Andrei Soldatov, the new decree is “the destruction of Russian economic expertise based on facts and statistics.” In his opinion, the classification of information about mobilization is more likely a response to Ukrainian drone attacks and concerns, in particular, data on bunkers and underground government evacuation routes, rather than preparations for a new wave of conscription.
Russia has already stopped publishing a significant portion of official statistics since the start of the full-scale invasion, including budget expenditures, oil production levels, and even casualties at the front. Any information about the human or material consequences of the war is gradually being pushed out of the public space.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has been using increasingly harsh mechanisms to suppress dissent. After the introduction of the “fake news” law against the army, journalists, activists, and even those who simply supported critical publications on social media were sentenced to long prison terms. The new rules open the way to further repression – now not only for words, but also for analysis or attempts to understand what is happening in Russia itself.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin believed that Western countries' attempts to bury the aggressor state's economy would be unsuccessful. He said that the West “will soon die.”
