The regime of secrecy in Russia is being strengthened and developed

On March 13, a group of deputies headed by Vasily Piskarev, chairman of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption, submitted to the State Duma a package of amendments to the laws on state secrets and the procedure for entering and leaving Russia. In total, according to the law on state secrets, there are three forms of admission:

• to secret information (the third form of admission);

• top secret information (second form);

• information of particular importance (first form).

The bill, as Piskarev explained, should “remove some gaps” related to the admission and access to state secrets for citizens “informed in information of particular importance or top secret information.” According to the deputy, the relevance of the amendments is connected with the conditions of the military operation, when foreign intelligence agencies show particular interest in Russian secrets.

The profile law will be supplemented by Art. 21.2, which will prescribe the duties of all those admitted to state secrets. Among them, for example, the obligation not to disclose secrets, the obligation to inform about attempts to find out information, etc. The same article will contain the obligation to inform about a conflict of interest: admission to state secrets may be denied if there are foreign accounts or real estate secret carrier, and his closest relatives.

According to the former intelligence officer, the decision to grant access to highly classified information regarding senior officials was previously taken by an interdepartmental commission, and they themselves were checked by the FSB. But now that this is written into the law, it is unlikely that the heads of the executive authorities (to prevent citizens from accessing secrets) will be able to ignore the requirements of the FSB.

At the same time, for military personnel, access to state secrets can now be issued without their consent. As stated in the explanatory note, in 2020, 9.4% of citizens called up for military training refused to obtain admission, and 34% of citizens who were involved in the recruitment of mobilization human resources (reservists of the first stage) refused to do so. This was primarily due to the unwillingness to lose the opportunity to travel abroad. Such military personnel are usually assigned the simplest, third form of admission.

Amendments to the law on the procedure for entry and exit from Russia spell out how a decision will be made to restrict the right to leave the country. The decision to restrict the right to leave citizens with the first or second form of admission will be made by officials in accordance with the procedure determined by the government. According to lawyer Dmitry Katchev, the amendments expand the powers of the FSB in relation to persons who hold secrets, but so far there is no clear mechanism for their implementation in the document.