Russian special services seize foreign passports from officials and heads of state-owned companies to prevent them from traveling abroad.

This is reported by The Financial Times.

The publication claims that Putin is concerned about the escape of people who oppose the invasion of Ukraine.

The Kremlin and the FSB fear that people may leave because they privately oppose the war and feel that sanctions against Russia are ruining their lavish lifestyles

Sources told the publication that security forces demanded that some members of the country's elite hand over their documents, following Soviet-era rules that were rarely used until recently.

The FT recalled that since Soviet times, Russian officials with access to medium-level state secrets have been required to leave their passports in "special department" safes.

But, according to former officials and managers, Russian special services rarely followed these rules.

But Russia began to apply this rule more after it occupied the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014.

And now she's applying the rule to even more people, the sources said, including people who don't have access to any state secrets.

Dictator Putin's spokesman Dmytro Peskov confirmed that Russia has tightened travel restrictions for some people working in "sensitive" fields.

"There are stricter rules for that," he told the Financial Times.

It is not clear how many officials and elites in Russia oppose the war, as the authorities threaten brutal repression against those who criticize it.

Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, significant numbers of wealthy Russians have moved to places like Dubai, and some officials have fled to the West, where they have offered to hand over secrets in exchange for asylum.

After the dictator Putin announced the beginning of mobilization in Russia on September 21, 2022, ordinary Russians also actively began to flee abroad. According to the NSDC, more Russians of draft age fled abroad from Russia than were able to mobilize.

Read also:

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