Moscow blocks access to court statistics

Since May, data on the grounds for court rulings relating to political and social repression, cases against military personnel, and those concerning defendants and convicts who are being sent to fight in the war in Ukraine have become inaccessible in Russia. In recent years, the figures had revealed an exponential rise in convictions for treason, espionage and collusion with foreign powers.

Moscow (AsiaNews) – Since May, the Department of Courts of the Russian Supreme Court has blocked access to all statistics on legal proceedings dating back over 20 years. These are the figures that reveal the grounds for sentences in cases involving political and social repression and persecution, as well as cases against military personnel, and which show how many accused and convicted individuals are being sent to fight in the war in Ukraine, whilst also having their criminal records expunged.

Katia Bonch-Osmolovskaya, a journalist and editor at the ‘Important Stories’ agency, has published a commentary explaining how important this now inaccessible data is, how difficult it is to replace it, and what hopes there are of being able to consult it again.

Judicial data for the whole of 2025 was expected to be published in Russia by the end of April, but this did not happen, and all statistics dating back to 2005 have disappeared. The department confirmed that access is now closed, following changes to the publication regulations, which now state that access “may only be granted with the agreement of senior management”.

Restrictions on access had also been imposed in previous years, such as in the autumn of 2024, when the Russian courts’ information system Pravosudie was under attack by hackers, and the websites of almost all Russian courts were down for over a month. The department subsequently published all the data for that period on the patriotic social media platform VKontakte. In 2023, information on convictions for offences against military service – such as desertion, unauthorised absence from units or refusal to serve – had disappeared from the records, following a secrecy order from the Ministry of Defence.

The importance of these statistics lies in the ability to understand the country’s entire official judicial landscape, and state bodies hold a monopoly on this data. There are over two thousand courts in Russia, and only the state can gather comprehensive information on them, with access to data from within.

The judicial department used to publish the data every six months, detailing the number of people convicted under various articles of the code, their age, gender and profession, the sentences handed down, search warrants and other information on the sector’s overall activity. Journalists and researchers regularly used this information to understand changes in Russia’s judicial practice.

For example, following the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the department’s statistics showed an exponential rise in the number of convictions for treason, espionage and collusion with foreign powers. Every six months, the courts set a new record for these offences, which are being applied in ever-broader ways; the latest available data relates to the first six months of 2025, when 151 people were convicted under these articles, a figure only slightly lower than the total for the whole of 2024. The same pattern applies to articles relating to terrorism and extremism.

The data have revealed a systematic intensification of repression against LGBT people and ‘foreign agents’, as well as a tightening of immigration policies. A shift in the demographic composition of those convicted has been observed: following the invasion of Ukraine, minors began to be convicted more frequently for serious offences such as terrorism, sabotage and treason, and in 2025 the proportion of women among all those convicted reached a record 20%.

A complete erasure of all criminal records seems too drastic and pointless a solution, and many of these indicators are in no way linked to the crackdowns and the war in Ukraine. Perhaps the statistics will be restored, but certain information deemed particularly sensitive by the state will continue to be concealed, such as everything relating to the activities of military courts.

It is also possible that from now on this information will appear only in state-controlled media, and only for offences where disclosure is permitted. On 3 May 2026, following the close of the statistical reporting period, the TASS news agency, citing the Supreme Court, reported that in 2025 as many as 262 people had been convicted of treason, espionage and secret collaboration with foreigners; this is yet another record, almost 50% higher than the previous year.