The Russian State Duma, lower house of parliament, has adopted a bill that gives the government powers to avoid disclosing official statistics, the announcement is published online.
The Russian government initiated the bill that originally focused on “particularities of the statistics” on Ukraine’s annexed territories: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions.
According to the document, respondents registered on the occupied territories can submit their primary statistical data on paper until 1 January 2026. Meanwhile, Russian regions are mandated to do so digitally.
However, at the second reading of the bill a group of lawmakers tabled amendments that pave the way for the Kremlin to hide any official statistics at their discretion.
The bill will now have to be approved by the upper house of parliament.
Earlier, the Russian Supreme Court stopped publishing statistics on military personnel verdicts. Apart from that, the Kremlin classified most of its macroeconomic statistics, including the foreign trade balance, banking system data, federal budget realisation, information about gold reserves, energy consumption, as well as oil production and exports.
