Russian authorities have begun freezing bank accounts belonging to some cultural figures living abroad without a prior court order or criminal case.
Political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann first publicly described the practice on July 14. According to her, the decisions are made by an interagency commission on combating the financing of terrorism and extremist activity based on a nonpublic list.
On July 21, SlovoNovo festival founder Marat Gelman told Agentstvo that restrictions may have affected around 100 people connected to the festival. He estimated that roughly 15–20 faced practical problems because the others no longer had significant assets in Russia.
BBC Russian also spoke with people whose accounts had been frozen. Some were not listed on Russia’s register of terrorists and extremists and said they were unaware of any criminal case against them.
The interagency commission received authority to freeze money and property in July 2025. The law allows such measures to be imposed on suspicion of involvement in “sabotage activity” without a court order and without a criminal case necessarily being opened.
No official public list of people subjected to the mechanism could be found.