The Kremlin has weaponized western financial checks to punish Russian dissidents

After nearly four years of waging war against Ukraine, the Kremlin has mastered and scaled up a new form of repression against its domestic opponents. It consists of using Rosfinmonitoring, the agency responsible for combating money laundering and terrorism financing, to label people “terrorists” and “extremists,” making normal financial life impossible for tens of thousands of people.

Being blacklisted not only means that all that person’s assets in Russia are frozen, it also triggers a chain reaction in the Western financial system. Banks start demanding additional documents for basic transactions, or they simply close the accounts, unwilling to deal with a “problem client.” Once a person has been tarred with this label by the Russian authorities, it’s extremely difficult and expensive to get rid of it—and all the costs are borne by the individual in question.

Before the war, Rosfinmonitoring’s list of terrorists primarily consisted of militants associated with Islamic fundamentalism. Later, it grew to include Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, the opposition leader himself (who has since died in a Russian jail), and his closest associates. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the list has expanded at breakneck speed to include any critics of the Russian regime.

Read more at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace