Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday promulgated a law that allows the confiscation of property in Russia of persons guilty of spreading “false information” about the country’s armed forces and “crimes against state security”, reports TASS.

The resolution on the adoption of the law was published on the official legal information portal of the Government of Russia.

The law was adopted by the Moscow Duma on January 31 after the third, final reading,in emergency mode, as announced on January 20 by the president of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, introduced to the parliament on January 22, voted on in the first reading on January 24 and approved on Wednesday after the second and third. reading.

Volodin said that this is a project “about scoundrels and traitors, about those who today spat on the backs of our soldiers and betrayed the Motherland.”

Russia wants to deprive internal “traitors” of their assets.

“Our country, the citizens of this country did everything so that they (no “Russian traitors”) lived comfortably, received honorary titles, awards, and property. And today they use these funds and property to spoil the country, betraying it, betraying its soldiers, officers, pouring mud and criticizing them,” Volodin thundered in a speech to his colleagues in the parliament.

“That’s why we are adopting a law in which definitions will be given for the first time, norms will be introduced into the Criminal Code, which will allow them to be prosecuted. This is the case in all countries where traitors are treated more harshly, except for us [în Rusia] they get a second or third citizenship. At the same time, sources of income are used to harm our country,” the Duma chairman told his fellow deputies.

Parliamentarian, first deputy head of the State Duma legislative commission Iryna Pankina, in her turn, stated that this form of confiscation is not a type of “punishment” but a “criminal-legal measure”.

“It would seem a small, but fundamentally significant nuance that distinguishes the Soviet variant of confiscation, when you could confiscate anything, from today’s confiscation, the purpose of which is to confiscate the instruments of crime, what was acquired through crime. This is money, valuables, property,” she tried to explain.

“And it will just be necessary to prove it. That is, not any property is confiscated, but only that which is directly related to this or that crime,” she added.

Russian dissidents may lose property if they pass on so-called “false information”

Although the law does not provide for the absolute confiscation of all assets of a convicted person, but for the confiscation of his money and funds “used or intended” to finance “criminal” activities, critics of the project noted that these wordings are too vague. from a legal and interpretative point of view.

The law also requires the judiciary to revoke all state awards given to individuals convicted of “spreading false information.”

The charge of spreading “false information” about the Russian armed forces carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, and over the past two years, hundreds of ordinary Russians have been convicted under this article of the Criminal Code.

The Russian parliament criminalized criticism of the military shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. Subsequently, the scope of the law was expanded to also “protect” all Russian state institutions operating abroad.

Follow the latest events of the 721st day of the war in Ukraine LIVETEXT on HOTNEWS.RO.