Putin Issues Unprecedented Number Of Secret Decrees

• 2.01.2024, 14:24

What might they be about?

Putin classified every second of his decree in 2023, which became a record for almost a quarter of a century of his being in power. This follows from the data on the website of the official publication of legal acts, «Mediazona» noted.

Putin's decrees are numbered sequentially, and at the beginning of each year their counter is reset to zero. However, classified documents are not published in the general database. Therefore, based on the number of missing numbers, it is possible to calculate how many decrees were classified.

Thus, in 2022, against the background of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the share of secret decrees of the head of the Kremlin increased to 45%. Putin set the previous record for this indicator in 2001 at the height of the Second Chechen War — then 47% of documents were not published.

In the second year of the war in Ukraine, the total number of decrees signed by Putin did not change: the last document number in 2022 was 996, in 2023 — 997, of which 49.5% were not published.

Secret decrees can be devoted to various issues, but among other things, the head of the Kremlin can issue them when rewarding military personnel or to pardon convicts who are being recruited for war. According to founder of the Gulagu.net project Vladimir Osechkin, more than 100 thousand prisoners were sent to fight in Ukraine from February 2022 to December 2023. One of the conditions for sending to the front is a presidential pardon after six months of service.

In Putin’s open decrees in 2023, there were also more documents on assigning the honorary name “Guards” to military units and ships. The reasons for the assignment are not specified; the text of the decrees uses the standard wording — “for mass heroism and courage, fortitude and bravery.”