143,394,000 people
Source: Tyranny Tracker
HRF classifies Russia as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
The Russian Federation is a presidential republic that reemerged as a separate political entity following the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. Under the Russian Constitution, adopted in 1993, the president holds extensive executive authority, including the power to appoint judges and key public officials in other institutions. Legislative power rests with a 620-member Federal Assembly, comprised of the Federation Council (170-member upper house) and the State Duma (450-member lower house). Vladimir Putin has been the de facto ruler of Russia since the ailing then-President Boris Yeltsin directly appointed him as acting prime minister in August 1999. Since first assuming office, Putin has consolidated an entrenched authoritarian regime by arbitrarily prolonging or resetting his terms, systematically persecuting political rivals and dissidents, heavily manipulating electoral outcomes, and dismantling the independent media and civil society. A controversial 2020 referendum allowed him to extend his grip on power until 2036.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in 2022, supercharged the regime’s latest efforts to stifle domestic dissent, from repressive news laws on wartime reporting to further restrictions on the freedom of assembly. Within the sovereign territories of Ukraine under de facto Russian occupation, Russia has committed war crimes, including the forced deportation of civilians, extrajudicial mass killings of non-combatants (in Bucha and Mariupol), and indiscriminate shelling of civilian infrastructure.
In Russia, national elections are a sham, to the point where the real, mainstream political opposition does not have a realistic chance to meaningfully compete and possibly win. The main opposition leaders have been consistently prevented from competing in elections through various tactics, including attempts on their lives or unfounded denials of their right to run by the Central Election Commission (CEC). Despite the virtual absence of viable competition, the regime has also systematically manipulated election results to maintain a veneer of legitimacy and stymied independent observation to obscure the full extent of its electoral fraud.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize Vladimir Putin’s regime. The regime took it upon itself to dismantle the few critical, unbiased islands of political coverage as early as Putin’s first presidential term, targeting prominent newspapers and TV programs that criticized or mocked those in power. Draconian laws have increasingly circumscribed civic space, while summary detentions and police violence against peaceful demonstrators have rendered the freedom of assembly nil.
Reflecting the thorough concentration of executive power in the presidency and Putin’s close personal circle, institutions fail to check the regime. On the contrary, the courts have rubber-stamped dubious referenda and constitutional amendments intended to entrench Putin’s grip on power and enable the persecution of dissidents, from political opponents to prominent civil society leaders.
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