Russia confiscates passports of officials

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (70) is afraid of defectors and leaks. His security services therefore confiscate the passports of senior officials and executives of state-owned companies. The Russian government wants to prevent influential personalities from Putin’s power apparatus from going abroad and chatting about state secrets. This is reported by the Financieele Dagblad.

The newspaper speaks of “several people familiar with the case”. The move is a result of the elite’s growing dissatisfaction with the effects of the war in Ukraine on their lifestyles, it said. Once upon a time, Russian officials and oligarchs could have spent their wealth on villas, yachts and boarding schools for their children in the West. Now they hate being confined to countries not considered “unfriendly,” the report quotes unnamed members of the elite as saying.

Putin spokesman: “More attention”

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (55) confirms the tightening of travel restrictions for people working in sensitive areas. “Since the beginning of the special military operation, there has been more attention to this issue,” explained Peskov.

Officials who have access to state secrets have been required to deposit their passports in a safe at their ministry since Soviet times. However, according to former officials and executives, the security services rarely enforced these rules. That changed after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. And since the invasion of Ukraine, restrictions have been applied much more extensively, according to newspaper sources.

Depending on the area of ​​responsibility, the travel restrictions are sometimes interpreted differently. In fact, according to one of the people, executives of a large state-owned industrial company are not allowed to travel more than two hours from Moscow without official permission. In other cases, the scheme also applies to former civil servants. According to Peskow, the decisions “depend on the specific area of ​​work” of both the company and the individual. (no)

Source: Blick