9 December 2025
Confiscation of property in Russia should be applied more broadly, writes Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee, in an article for RBC.
According to him, the Investigative Committee is currently developing a new procedure for isolating criminal cases—the search for and return of criminally acquired property and any property subject to confiscation.
“The list of crimes for which confiscation is applied must be expanded,” Bastrykin writes. He also calls for the seizure in corruption cases to be imposed not only on criminally acquired assets, but also on other property that was “alienated to third parties for the purpose of concealment.”
After the invasion of Ukraine, the authorities expanded the list of articles under which confiscation is possible, notes Evgeny Smirnov, a lawyer for the First Department: confidential cooperation with foreign organizations (Article 275.1 of the Russian Criminal Code), sabotage (Article 281 of the Russian Criminal Code), and unauthorized access to information (Articles 272, 273, 274, and 274.1 of the Russian Criminal Code). In 2024, property confiscation was authorized for “fakes” about the army, as well as for 30 crimes against “state security”—desertion, participation in an undesirable organization, etc.
According to the Supreme Court, 24,078 Russian citizens received property confiscation sentences last year—9.3 times more than in 2020. During the war, the number of confiscations has increased fivefold and continues to increase annually: 4,195 in 2022 and 15,583 in 2023.
However, “confiscation is more often applied to business-related offenses and anything related to bribery,” Smirnov notes. “Hence the explosive growth in criminal cases against ministers, governors, and deputy ministers. These are attempts to plug the budget holes left by the war.”
“The list of crimes for which confiscation is applied must be expanded,”
Everyone with even only half a brain knows how to interpret this statement. The mafia state, true to its colors, can and will steal anything they deem stealable to help finance its killing.
I don’t expect this will apply to the putler mafia gang.
They will be the ones grabbing the loot, as long as there is some left to grab.