Capital controls. Deputies introduce law stripping outspoken Russians in exile of access to banking and property deals, creating a registry of “evaders”

The proposed law, which is scheduled to enter into force on March 1, 2026, applies to anyone convicted under the Criminal Code or found guilty of specific administrative offences who is confirmed to be living outside Russia. The administrative triggers are tailored to political dissent: they include “discrediting” the army, calling for sanctions against Russia, participating in “undesirable” organisations, and failing to comply with “foreign agent” regulations.

Once added to the Prosecutor General’s registry, people would face an almost complete loss of economic rights in Russia. The bill bars them from obtaining loans or credit, freezes all real estate and vehicle registrations, and prohibits them from registering as entrepreneurs or self-employed. They would also be blocked from using electronic signatures and from accessing banking and government service portals from abroad.

The bill text specifies that listed persons will be refused essential services abroad, including the registration of marriages and name changes. They are also barred from handling legal affairs by proxy; the bill forbids concluding transactions or performing other legal actions via power of attorney, effectively paralysing their ability to manage affairs back home.

Financial survival is further complicated by a new mandatory mechanism: the “special ruble account”. Under the proposed law, listed persons can only receive payments from the Russian budget (say, pensions) or Russian entities through this single designated account. Banks are authorised to open these accounts unilaterally—without the client’s presence or consent—simply upon the request of a payer. Funds in these accounts can be automatically debited to pay off fines, debts, or damages from lawsuits.

If parents, spouses, or children remaining in Russia have no independent income, the Prosecutor General can authorise a monthly allowance for them—paid directly from the frozen funds or special account of the exiled relative.

Duma Commission Chairman Vasily Piskaryov defended the measures as a response to “politically motivated” refusals by NATO countries to extradite suspects. “Westerners actively use the evaders dependent on them in anti-Russian activities,” Piskarev claimed, conflating political activists with “terrorists, murderers, corrupt officials, fraudsters, bankers who fled with depositors’ money, builders who left thousands of homebuyers without apartments, and also those who involved children in committing illegal acts.”

According to Piskaryov, in the first 11 months of 2025 various countries refused to hand over 109 people to Russia, while last year they did not satisfy 102 extradition requests.

According to the bill, the only way to be removed from the registry is to have the sentence overturned, return to Russia, begin serving the sentence, or die.

Particularly notable among the bill’s authors are Maria Butina, who served 15 months in a U.S. prison as an unregistered “foreign agent” and was deported back to Russia in 2019, and Andrei Lugovoy, whom the U.K. has long sought to extradite for the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. They are joined by Andrei Alshevskikh, whom Navalny ally Leonid Volkov once sent 30 rubles to mockingly imply that he was foreign-funded.