Duma bill would triple prison terms for online “calls to riots”, citing “relocants and foreign agents”

A bill toughening criminal liability for calls to mass riots has been submitted to Russia’s State Duma, one of its authors, MP Vasily Piskarev, announced on 20 October 2026, Meduza reported.

What the bill changes

• Today the maximum penalty for calls to mass riots (Part 3 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code) is two years in prison. The bill would raise it to four years.
• Calls to riots made via the internet would become a separate offence (Part 3.1 of Article 212) punishable by up to six years in prison — three times the current maximum.

According to Meduza, the bill has already received positive reviews from the government and the Supreme Court.

The stated rationale

Piskarev justified the changes as follows: “Our adversaries — the collective West and the fugitive criminals, relocants and foreign agents controlled by them — do not give up attempts to provoke our citizens into taking part in various provocations and to draw them into committing crimes.”

Context / Explanation

This section was added by the Sardaana editors to explain the terms used in the quote; it is not part of Meduza’s report.

• “Relocants” (релоканты). As Russian officials use the word, it refers to Russians who have left the country — especially those who emigrated after the start of the full-scale war in 2022.
• “Foreign agents” (иноагенты). A legal status assigned by Russia’s Ministry of Justice, mostly to opposition figures, independent journalists and media, and critics of the war. The ministry’s own notices cite reasons such as “spreading unreliable information” about state decisions and “opposing the special military operation” (e.g. the 9 October 2026 additions). According to Kommersant, the register held 1,208 entries (including those later removed) on 22 May 2026; according to Kasparov.ru, it reached 1,279 entries after additions on 9 October 2026.
• “Collective West.” In Russian state propaganda the phrase is used loosely for the countries that support Ukraine against Russia — in this rhetoric typically the US, Canada, European countries and the UK, as well as Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand; in the framing of Sardaana’s editors, countries such as Turkey, Uruguay and Chile are also sometimes lumped in. It is a rhetorical label, not a formal alliance.
• Growing repression. Human-rights monitors document mounting pressure:
  • The project Political Prisoners Support. Memorial counted 1,825 recognised political prisoners on 30 September 2026, up from 1,680 on 30 June. Its wider list of people deprived of liberty in cases with signs of political motivation grew from 5,567 to 5,740 over the same quarter. Memorial notes that the number of new prosecutions per quarter has stayed roughly stable (about 500), while charges are becoming harsher.
  • OVD-Info, in its review of 2025 (as reported by Meduza), found that the total number of political criminal cases had returned to pre-war levels, but that the average sentence had risen from six to eight years compared with 2021 and that three times as many sentences were handed down in political cases as before the war. “Repression is getting tougher,” the group concluded.