Russia’s New Police State

Over the past year the Kremlin’s biggest political headache hasn’t come from the anemic political opposition; it has come instead from a groundswell of resentment against Russia’s spectacularly corrupt, inept, and brutal police. A series of revelations of just how corrupt—from a police major’s YouTube video about the corruption of his colleagues, to the confessions of paramilitary police officers about arrest quotas and police protection rackets—have sparked protests from a wide cross section of ordinary people. Public trust in the police has cratered; according to a recent survey by the Moscow-based Levada Center, more than 70 percent of Russians distrust all branches of law enforcement. “Russia is now one of those countries where citizens expect more unpleasantness, problems, and even criminality from the police than from actual criminals,” says independent political analyst Nikolai Zlobin.

Now we have the Kremlin’s response: to give the police and the Federal Security Service, or FSB, many more powers. Last month President Dmitry Medvedev made a point of publicly backing a sweeping new law that gives the FSB powers to arrest people on suspicion of planning an act “contrary to the country’s security” before they have actually done anything illegal. The law also establishes fines and detentions of up to 15 days for people seen as “hindering the work of an FSB employee.” The new powers given to the secret police under the new law was one of the reasons cited by presidential human-rights adviser Ella Pamfilova for her resignation last month.