After Crimea, a Changing Landscape in Russian Anti-Extremism Policy

In the years following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the state’s turn towards nationalist ideology, based on traditional values, has shaped the formation and enforcement of anti-extremism policies. The move away from state secularism has led to the introduction of explicitly ideological articles into the criminal code. The enforcement of anti-extremism laws over radical groups has also changed greatly. Alexander Verkhovsky, the director of Russia's SOVA Center, examined these shifts in philosophy and what new course they may indicate the Russian state has charted.

Key Quotes:

Alexander Verkhovsky:

“When the annexation [of Crimea] happened, of course there was a lot of enthusiasm. What is more important is that there was well-organized ideological mobilization, which focused on political support for the leader, anti-Western sentiments, some Orthodox symbology, and also the idea of accepting the whole history of Russia as something generally positive, even the most problematic periods… We see that the number of people who said that [Stalin’s repressions] were a crime is decreasing from 50 to 40 percent, while the number of people who approve of it is increasing."

“In the same line [of the new criminal statute], we see the ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is something that is unprecedented. It couldn’t have happened before. More than 100,000 are now illegal in the country. What does the government plan to do with that? It is impossible to prosecute them all for illegal activity. Previously, the government avoided such situations. Now, pure ideological requests put them in a rather difficult situation.”

“The [anti-extremism prosecution] machine cannot stop. If they try to decelerate it in one place, it must accelerate somewhere else, because they have to report to the political leadership that they are fighting extremism.”

"According to our statistics… the number of violent hate crimes [due to] sexuality is not big -- much, much less than based on ethnic differences, which is the core part. Sometime there are more attacks when the government provokes it, like in 2013, when this infamous gay propaganda law was discussed and finally approved… Chechnya is something completely different. Of course, this last campaign is pure homophobia… It’s like some other country. Thank God we don’t have similar practices even in neighboring regions.”