Russia confiscates passports from officials and executives amid fears of defections from Putin’s regime
Russia’s security services are confiscating the passports of senior officials and executives of state-owned companies to prevent foreign travel, amid fears of defections in Vladimir Putin’s regime.the British business newspaper Financial Times.
Security officials have tightened travel requirements within the state sector, requiring the surrender of travel documents of prominent figures, according to several people familiar with the matter, the FT adds.
The move reflects the deep suspicion in the Kremlin and the FSB, the KGB’s successor secret services, over the loyalty of the civilian elite in Russia, many of whom privately oppose the war in Ukraine and are upset about the impact the conflict has had on their way of life, the information indicates.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has indicated that Russia had. tightened travel restrictions abroad for people working in “sensitive” areas.
“There are stricter rules for this. In some places they are formalized and in some places. they depend on a specific decision on specific employees,” he told the FT.
Since Soviet times, Russian officials with access to mid-level state secrets have been obliged to leave their passports in a secure location by the “special department” embedded in its ministries and enterprises. However, Russia’s security services rarely enforced the rules, according to former officials and executives.
That changed after the invasion of Crimea in 2014, when the security services began to warn against travel to countries such as the United States or the United Kingdom. After the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, restrictions were applied much more widely.
