On July 14, 2025, SOVA Center published a report by Maria Kravchenko and Natalia Yudina titled “Counter-Extremism in 2024: Regulation of Public Speech and Organized Activity.” The Russian version is available here; the report is currently being translated into English.
The report highlights two main areas where the provisions of the Criminal Code of Russia regarding extremism are applied. First, it addresses the prosecution of individuals for public statements that authorities interpret as extremist, promoting terrorism, or opposing "traditional values." Second, it examines the prosecution of individuals for participating in organizations that are classified as extremist or terrorist. The report provides an overview of the legislative innovations for 2024.
The goal was to analyze law enforcement in its entirety, utilizing several parameters for the examination:
• the scope of law enforcement;
• types of penalties;
• categories of targeted phenomena: ethnic xenophobia, connections to Ukraine, opposition to authorities, etc.;
• appropriateness of prosecution – based on our assessments;
• and some others.
We also examined data by pairs of parameters, such as categories of counteraction targets and the appropriateness of prosecutions.
The analysis results are detailed in the relevant sections and chapters of the report.
In 2024, the increase in the total number of people convicted for public speech and those punished for participation in extremist and terrorist associations was approximately the same as in the previous two years. In this sense, we can see a natural continuation of the trends that we noted in the reports for 2023.
If we consider anti-extremist law enforcement as a whole, it is clear how significant a share of it consists of criminal cases related to the armed conflict in Ukraine. In 2023–2024, approximately half of the total number of individuals convicted for public statements faced such charges, and the same is true for the same number of new defendants known to us in 2024. Convicted for statements against authorities and ethno-xenophobic remarks shared second place in 2024, with under 20% in each category. At the same time, law enforcement agencies focus primarily on investigations under Article 2052 of the Criminal Code (propaganda and justification of terrorism), perceiving calls for violence against the authorities as a source of increased danger.
The dynamics of the appropriateness of sentences, based on our criteria and our information, is disappointing: the share of inappropriate convictions for public speech increased in 2024 in relation to the share of convictions for aggressive xenophobic statements and other illegal agitation. The share of inappropriate enforcement has continued to rise steadily since 2021, and in 2024, we estimate that the share of people wrongfully convicted for public statements was the highest in the history of our monitoring, primarily due to those punished for utterances related to Ukraine.
Regarding prosecutions for extremist and terrorist organizations, it is challenging for us to make general assessments due to a lack of information. However, it is evident that in 2024, as in previous years, the majority of convictions involved individuals associated with religious and religious-political groups, ranging from Jihadist organizations (which are out of our focus) to Jehovah's Witnesses. At the same time, based on new cases filed in 2024, there was a shift in the proportions of those prosecuted. While the pressure against Jehovah's Witnesses somewhat eased, the rates of individuals charged with involvement in prohibited pro-Ukrainian organizations and the Prisoners’ Criminal Unity went up. Additionally, there were fewer new cases against members of the “Citizens of the USSR” movement in 2024 compared to 2023, alongside a rise in cases related to donations made to the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
Overall, in terms of criminal prosecution, 2024 turned out to be noticeably less dynamic than the previous year. The rise in new cases related to public speech, particularly in 2023, decreased by more than half and the increase in cases related to participation in terrorist or extremist groups may have come to a complete halt. In this sense, 2024 may have changed the trend, but the final assessment will only be possible based on the number of people sentenced in 2025–2026. But, undoubtedly, the increasing frequency of real terrorist and sabotage actions in the context of armed conflict, as well as the increase in hate crimes, distract the attention of law enforcement agencies from the implementation of an extensive system of measures to control society, which is formed by Russian anti-extremist legislation.
The legislation itself did not see significant changes in 2024; existing mechanisms were modified, and their coverage expanded. Still, the authorities' determination to counter separatism and tighten the legal status of migrants remain noteworthy, as does their increasing distrust of any foreign presence and influence.
