From Nezavisimaya gazeta, July 2, 2025, p. 1. Condensed text:
. . . The provisions of Art. 330.1 of Russia’s Criminal Code (“failure to comply with the laws regulating foreign agent status in Russia”) are about to change in the part that defines the initial administrative penalties before the criminal procedure is launched.
The amendment was endorsed by representatives of all the factions in the State Duma except for the Russian Federation Communist Party (RFCP), and was welcomed by the government and the Supreme Court.
According to the current version of Art. 330.1, a foreign agent may be found guilty of a crime if they fail to confirm their status, or if, after being added to the Justice Ministry’s “foreign agents” registry, they fail to comply with any of the provisions of the law “On monitoring the activities of individuals under foreign influence.” But criminal prosecution can only start after a certain condition is met: The person in question has to receive repeated administrative punishment for the same offense “twice within the same year” after the initial administrative punishment. Obviously, it shouldn’t be very difficult to go through all these preliminary procedures in a relatively short period of time if necessary, but why bother if it is easier to amend the Criminal Code.
The amendments were sponsored by a group of Duma members led by deputy speaker Irina Yarovaya (United Russia), security committee chairman Vasily Piskaryov (United Russia) and defense committee chairman Andrei Kartapolov (United Russia). Incidentally, this group does not include any Communists. The RFCP may not have chosen to endorse the proposed amendments because they basically eliminate the initial stage of administrative penalties. The new version of Art. 330.1 does still say that criminal prosecution only starts after an administrative penalty – but the required number of such penalties has been reduced to one, and it no longer matters how much time has passed since the foreign agent was initially fined.
Theoretically, the record of a person guilty of an administrative offense should still be expunged in a year. But a year is counted from the day the fine imposed by the court is paid, not the day it was issued. Also, the original version of Art. 330.1, when referring to a foreign agent with an administrative record, used a formula saying that the penalty has been “administered,” which implies that the person in question had the chance to go through all the stages of appealing the penalty. This nuance will be fixed in the new version. A different formula will now be used, with the penalty being “imposed” rather than “administered,” meaning that a foreign agent will be treated as having an administrative record as soon as the administrative procedure is initiated. By the way, there are some RFCP activists who may face criminal charges once the amendment passes.
The explanatory memo attached to the bill offers the following reason for the amendment: “The purpose of this bill is to enhance the efficiency of criminal law with respect to people who consistently violate the laws regulating the activities of foreign agents.” The memo adds that “the current procedure for prosecuting such offenses does not fully serve the nation’s security interests in this area.”
The memo mentions the following statistics provided by the Justice Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office. Over 40% of the individuals listed as foreign agents refuse to comply with the requirements and restrictions that their status entails. Since 2023, a total of 441 administrative offense reports have been filed regarding such violations. In 2023, criminal proceedings were initiated six times in connection with offenses under Art. 330.1; in 2024, this number increased to 75. Hence, “considering all the challenges and security threats that Russia’s sovereignty faces today,” the initial administrative stage is basically eliminated and criminal prosecution of foreign agents may start immediately. In other words, being listed as a foreign agent basically means you are a criminal.
Official commentary provided by the government does not contain any feedback on the substance of the proposed amendment. Instead, the document focuses on the procedural issue of what constitutes an administrative record. The document cites an earlier ruling by the Constitutional Court that says that people who have previously been found guilty of a similar offense but, for technical reasons, do not have the record of an administrative penalty being administered, should not be in a privileged position [compared to offenders who do have such a record] – or immune from criminal prosecution. Hence, the government lawyers write, the part of the article defining legal prerequisites for criminal proceedings does need to be clarified. As for the Supreme Court, its official response to the proposed amendment was very terse: The court does not have any comments or recommendations as per its ambit. The dates mentioned in these documents reveal that the draft amendment and requests for official comments were first circulated in mid-April.
The explanatory memo does not clarify what prompted these hurried legislative changes. There is just an unofficial comment by Piskaryov, who wrote on his Telegram channel, “Foreign agents remain the battering ram that the West uses to try to tear down our nation. Many of them reside abroad and simply ignore the requirements and restrictions that we have in Russia for foreign agents.” Namely, Piskaryov wrote, they do not submit regular reports on their activities, they refuse to label the materials they publish as those produced by a “foreign agent” (or refuse to follow labeling instructions), they ignore the ban on engaging in educational activities, etc. “The punishment currently envisaged by law does not stop them from continuing their unlawful activities,” wrote the chairman of the Duma security committee, who also chairs the Duma commission for investigating cases of foreign interference.