The kremlin Is Modernizing the System of Property Confiscation As a “Promising” Source of Budget Revenue

In russia, the number of court rulings in criminal cases involving property confiscation increased from 11,000 to 31,000 between 2023 and 2025. This was pointed out by head of the main criminal and judicial directorate of the prosecutor general’s office of the rf sergey bazhutov. According to information from the supreme court of the rf, in 2022, sentences with confiscation were handed down to 4,195 people, and in 2024 – to 24,078. Compared to 2020, the figures increased 9.3 times.

At the beginning of the year, head of the country’s investigative committee aleksandr bastrykin also emphasized the need to increase the number of cases involving confiscation. According to him, over the past year, investigators had seized russian property worth approximately 24.5 billion rubles. These figures are by 25% higher than in 2024. After criminal proceedings were initiated, the defendants “voluntarily” handed over property, cash, and valuables worth 4.7 billion rubles.

“Confiscation” as a special measure was reintroduced into the criminal code of the rf back in 2006. At that time, this type of punishment was used mainly in cases of corruption and economic crimes as a mechanism for compensation for damages. With the start of the “special military operation” confiscation was supplemented with new types of crimes, in particular, cooperation with foreign organizations, sabotage, fake news about the russian army, and crimes against “state security”. At the end of last year, the constitutional court of the rf allowed the confiscation of even the only home purchased with legal funds from relatives and third parties involved in the case.

This desire and persistence of the russian repressive apparatus to increase the use of punishment through property confiscation linked to specific events can only be explained by the kremlin’s attempts to patch up holes in the state budget, which is suffering from the war against Ukraine.