Some of the statements made by Russian officials at the recent St. Petersburg International Legal Forum were noteworthy for their outlandishness. The officials were not trying to generate controversy, nor were these gaffes. Instead, they were seeking to appeal to President Vladimir Putin—and their words were a good illustration of how the Russian leader’s attitude toward the law has evolved over more than two decades in power. When he first became president, Putin tended to observe the letter of the law, while ignoring its spirit. Then he began changing the law to suit himself. Now he apparently believes he can decide what the law is, and which laws can be ignored.
The most preposterous comments at the forum included Putin adviser Anton Kobyakov claiming the Soviet Union “continues to exist” because of procedural violations during its demise, Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko threatening to label extraterrestrials “foreign agents,” Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin referring to delegates from the United Arab Emirates as “migrants,” and Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko opining about the perfidious “Western influence” on the Decembrists, who staged an uprising in 1825.
The annual forum has changed in lockstep with the Kremlin’s vision of the world. When it was set up in 2011 by then president Dmitry Medvedev, it included many guests from the United States and Europe. These days, that would be out of the question: Russia’s criticism of the West is more pronounced every year, and Medvedev is now one of the regime’s most fiery ultraconservative, anti-Western spokespeople.
Traditionally, Putin—who holds a law degree himself—was seen as a ruler with a strong formal adherence to the law. Three years after becoming president, for example, he said that strict observance of the constitution was “the basis of successful development of the state and civil agreement in society.” And in 2014, he stated that it was unacceptable to restrict people’s rights as part of efforts to counter crimes such as drugs, terrorism, and pedophilia—because those rights are guaranteed by the constitution.
The rhetoric at the forum was firmly at odds with this sort of earlier Putinist legalism. No one would chide Kobyakov for his words nowadays—not least because they chime with Putin’s own famous pronouncement about the collapse of the Soviet Union being “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Moreover, Putin is currently engaged in using military force to take control of former Soviet territory, and Kobyakov’s suggestion was merely a proposal to help provide a legal framework for Russian aggression. After all, if the Soviet Union still exists, then the current war is an internal conflict. In Kobyakov’s paradigm, using violence to resurrect the Soviet Union is lawful.
Justice Minister Chuychenko’s comments at the forum were also calibrated to fit the trajectory of current Russian politics. One of his proposals was to repeal criminal liability for those who break the law while defending “spiritual and moral values.” That would be nothing less than a legal mechanism for permitting vigilantism by radical, pro-Kremlin activists like those from the far-right nationalist organization Russian Community who target migrants, the LGBTQ+ community, and the liberal opposition.
These proposals by Chuychenko and Kobyakov are in no way consistent with either the spirit or the letter of Russian law. The constitution clearly makes no provisions for Chuychenko’s system of vigilante pardons. Kobyakov’s comments, meanwhile, are in direct contravention of the constitution, which names the Russian Federation as the Soviet Union’s legal successor. Nevertheless, experienced lawyers and officials put forward such ideas because they sense that Putin and his close advisers now believe they are the ultimate arbiters of what is and is not law.
Relatively soon after Putin came to power, it became clear that it was the letter of the law that mattered to him, not the spirit. This was illustrated in 2007, when he chose Medvedev as his presidential seat warmer and stepped down the following year to be prime minister, thus circumventing the constitutional ban on serving more than two consecutive presidential terms. Putin later said he hadn’t “changed the constitution to suit himself.” However, his actions were hardly in keeping with its spirit.
Just before standing in elections for a fourth presidential term in 2018, Putin assured voters: “I never changed the constitution or adjusted it to my needs, and I do not have any such plans today.” But two years later, he ended up doing just that, and changed the constitution to allow himself to run again as president. In other words, the moment the letter of the law became a problem, it turned out that Putin was happy to change it.
Amid the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, even changing laws is apparently too time-consuming for the Kremlin. Putin increasingly prefers to talk about “justice” instead of “the law.” At the same time, he criticizes international law, calling it “rules invented by God knows whom.”
This approach was used when Russia announced it was annexing four Ukrainian regions in 2022 (despite not fully controlling them militarily), and designated them part of Russia in the constitution. The result is a bizarre situation in which Russian peace negotiators point to the Russian constitution as a reason for their territorial demands during talks with their Ukrainian counterparts. Arbitrariness has become the essence of Russia’s legal system.
Despite the direction of the prevailing wind, there remain a few old-school advocates of legalism within the Russian system. Andrei Klishas, the head of the constitutional legislation committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament, has been putting forward opposition to some of the most absurd legal proposals (like that of the continuing existence of the Soviet Union). Klishas is apparently worried these ideas might actually find support at the highest level. His fears are entirely justified.
In the kaleidoscope of judicial norms, it’s possible to find a law or a legal opinion to justify almost any specific policy. And it’s likely that the Kremlin’s attitude to the law will continue to evolve in this arbitrary direction. Before our eyes, the legalism that held sway in the early years of Putin’s rule is giving way to despotism and personal fiat.
