Putin Brings Back the Gulag! The Law Will Come into Effect on January 1

On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin signed a new law that gives Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) the right to run its own detention centers, ending the Justice Ministry's nearly two decades of exclusive control over detainees, a system created in 2000. in order to bring it into line with European legal norms, writes Novaya Gazeta Evropa.

The law, which will enter into force on January 1, 2026, allows the FSB to create and manage its own centers, where it can establish its own standards for the conditions under which detainees will be held, transported and investigated in pre-trial proceedings.

The measure will affect detention facilities where people suspected of treason, espionage, terrorism or “extremism“ are held, in order to, according to the explanatory note accompanying the law, ensure better “protection of state secrets“ during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

According to researchers Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, experts on Russian security services, the law represents “the basis for a new Gulag“ and could lead to an increase in repression in the country.

In addition to allowing the FSB to create its own facilities, the law will return at least seven pre-trial detention centers previously run by the Justice Ministry to the FSB's legal control, according to the independent news agency Meduza, including the notorious Lefortovo pre-trial detention center in Moscow.

Initially, in 2006, the seven pre-trial detention centers were transferred to the control of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Justice Ministry to comply with the legal standards of the Council of Europe, of which Russia has been a member since 1996. by 2022.

In February, State Duma deputy Vasily Piskaryov, one of the authors of the bill, criticized the 2006 decision, saying that it was "taken at the instigation of Western “partners" to signal Russia's “compliance“ with European values, and never contributed to “increasing [Russia's] security level".

However, as lawyer Yevgeny Smirnov previously told Novaya Gazeta, the seven sites have long been under the de facto control of the FSB, so while it gives the agency additional powers, such as the ability to restrict detainees' access to a lawyer, the new law is a partial formalization of that arrangement.