Russia Plans to Allow Military to Defend Citizens Prosecuted Abroad

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(Bloomberg) — Russia is moving to allow the use of its armed forces to protect citizens facing arrest or prosecution overseas, underscoring Moscow’s hostility toward foreign courts pursuing cases against Russians.

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Under the measure, military force could be deployed to protect Russians whose cases are in foreign courts or international tribunals whose authority Moscow doesn’t recognize, according to draft legislation published on the parliament’s website Thursday. Any decision to use the armed forces would rest with the president.

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The speaker of the lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Friday that lawmakers would prioritize the bill, according to the Interfax news service. “The Western justice system has completely discredited itself,” he said.

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While the actual impact of the measure remains unclear, the threat of military force could give Moscow another tool to pressure governments abroad.

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“This bill looks like a direct threat to the International Criminal Court and other international and foreign legal entities that may take up cases against Russia and Russian officials,” said Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “The message is pretty simple: if you try to detain any of our people, we can send in special forces.” 

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The ICC in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes related to the alleged abduction of children from occupied areas of Ukraine. The Hague-based court has also issued warrants for other senior Russian officials for alleged crimes linked to the war.

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Western countries have increased their scrutiny of the Kremlin’s operations abroad, seeking to counter alleged Russian sabotage and curtail its sanctioned energy trade by going after the country’s so-called shadow fleet. 

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“It is difficult to imagine how it would be implemented,” said Moscow-based lawyer Sergei Badamshin. “There is a principle of reciprocity: if we stop respecting other states’ sovereignty by using military force to free our citizens, then other countries may begin to act in kind, sending their own armed forces in response.”

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This could become a lever for political pressure from Moscow, according to Nikolai Petrov, a senior research fellow at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre in London.

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The legislation, which still has to pass parliament and be signed by the president to become law, may also be aimed at a domestic audience. 

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“It also helps to create at the same time a sense of external threat and internal protection among the Russian public,” said Schulmann. “The Kremlin is telling them, ‘the authorities will stand up for you’.”

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