In some cases, people are released to “separate countries”.
FSB – investigation” alt=”In Russia, employees of state-owned companies are obliged to hand over their foreign passports to the FSB – investigation” />
Part of the employees of Russian departments, state-owned companies and state-owned corporations became virtually unable to leave after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. According to the investigative project of “Nastoyascheche vremy” and “Radio Svoboda” “Sistema”, some were directly asked to hand over their foreign passport.
With reference to sources in the management of one of the state companies, officials of the regional government and the manager of the travel company, the journalists note that in some cases the civil servants were asked to hand over the document to the FSB, in some cases to a special department at the place of work. Dissenters were offered to resign. As a result, in one of the state-owned companies, some employees wrote statements of their own accord.
In some cases, FSB employees also hinted that in case of refusal to hand over the passport, it could be “cancelled” and it would still be impossible to travel abroad.
At the same time, according to the investigators, there is no single rule or order regarding foreign passports. For the employees of various organizations, they limited themselves to a strict recommendation to avoid foreign vacations — some were prohibited from traveling abroad, others outside the Eurasian Economic Zone or the CSTO.
One of the officials of the federal authorities clarified to journalists that the ban “at the level of general knowledge” applies to everyone who has at least some level of access to state secrets – they are not asked to hand over their passports directly, but they will not be allowed to go on vacation abroad.
A source close to the Putin administration claims that most Kremlin employees “don't even try” to leave. At the same time, another source said that some in 2022 calmly traveled to “neutral” countries, but the permission for such departure could be personally signed by the head of the Kremlin administration, Anton Vaino.
Sources of journalists in Russian ministries indicate an “individual approach”, when some employees are allowed to leave “for good reasons”, someone is released to the permissible list of countries, or a civil servant signs a notice that he does not intend to visit foreign countries, but leaves anyway, and then reports on the changes that have occurred. There is also an agreement on the departure of civil servants with a warning from the superiors “only no photos on social networks”.
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Related video < p>Journalists note that current Russian laws and regulations allow officials and employees of state-owned companies to limit their travel, as well as confiscate their foreign passports if the employees have access to state secrets. For servicemen, active and former employees of the FSB, the ban on leaving is valid for five years after dismissal. However, these norms began to be used especially often after the seizure of Crimea in 2014. Then the restrictions were extended to law enforcement officers and judges, who were advised not to visit “unfriendly countries”.
