Russia
Death penalty and prisoners' rights · Archive since 1999
Data card
- Legal status
- Moratorium on executions
- Executions recorded in 2026
- 0
- Executions recorded in 2025
- 0
- First news item in the archive
- JANUARY 1, 1999 · In 1996, the then President Boris Yeltsin imposed a...
- News items in the archive
- 461
Source: Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026.
Russia is classified as Moratorium on executions in the Hands Off Cain database, updated to 2026. In 2026 the association recorded 0 executions in the country, against 0 the year before. The archive holds 461 news items on Russia, from 1999 to today.
Latest news
- JULY 13, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The Yabloko faction in the State Duma fully supported...
The Yabloko faction in the State Duma fully supported the stand of President Vladimir Putin on the impermissibility of capital punishment in Russia
- JULY 12, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Russia may refuse to pair up with the USA to fight...
Russia may refuse to pair up with the USA to fight terrorism if the Americans persist in keeping the death penalty, Russia's envoy to the European Court of Human Rights Pavel Laptev told reporters
- JULY 11, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The Council of Europe clashed with Russia over Chechnya,...
The Council of Europe clashed with Russia over Chechnya, accusing Moscow of covering up its forces' widespread brutality against detainees in the war-torn breakaway republic
- JULY 11, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The Kavkaz-Tsentr news agency web site reported that...
The Kavkaz-Tsentr news agency web site reported that mercenaries from the Interior Ministry's internal troops hanged seven people on a gas pipe in the centre of Alkhan-Kale village on June 20
- JULY 11, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
President Vladimir Putin's stand against the death...
President Vladimir Putin's stand against the death penalty set off a fresh wave of controversy over whether the country needs the capital punishment
- JULY 10, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
A high-ranking official from the Kremlin administration...
A high-ranking official from the Kremlin administration told RIA news agency that no "sharp increase in crime statistics" had been registered in Russia during the five years that have followed the introduction of a moratorium on the death penalty in the c
- JULY 10, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
State Duma deputy speaker Vladimir Zhirinovskiy told...
State Duma deputy speaker Vladimir Zhirinovskiy told Interfax in an interview that Putin's statement about the unacceptability of executions in Russia was "an outright concession to the West"
- JULY 9, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of President Vladimir Putin's...
Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of President Vladimir Putin's administration, insisted that Russia has to uphold its moratorium on the death penalty
- JULY 9, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Russia is fully observing its moratorium on the death...
Russia is fully observing its moratorium on the death penalty, the head of the country's Constitutional Court said
- JULY 9, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
President Vladimir Putin, invoking the God-given right...
President Vladimir Putin, invoking the God-given right to life, said that Russia had to uphold its five-year-old moratorium on the death penalty despite widespread calls to reinstate executions to fight crime
- JULY 5, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Eighty percent of Russians think that the death penalty...
Eighty percent of Russians think that the death penalty is permissible, the Public Opinion Foundation said based on a June 30 poll of 1,500 village and town residents nationwide
- JULY 3, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Thirty-five percent of 1,600 respondents polled by...
Thirty-five percent of 1,600 respondents polled by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research centre said that if Chechen rebel leaders do not put down their arms and are caught by the federal forces, they should be killed without any trial and investigation
- JUNE 29, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The deputy chairwoman of the Constitutional Court of...
The deputy chairwoman of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, Tamara Morshchakova, said she opposes the possible introduction of the death penalty in Russia
- JUNE 28, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
A vast majority, 72%, of the 1,600 Russians polled...
A vast majority, 72%, of the 1,600 Russians polled by the All-Russian Public Opinion Centre on June 22-25 believe that capital punishment should exist for grave crimes
- JUNE 28, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Russia's lower house of parliament raised the problem...
Russia's lower house of parliament raised the problem of the presidential commission for pardons
- JUNE 27, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The work of the Russian presidential clemency commission...
The work of the Russian presidential clemency commission has been suspended, and its members have apprehensions that it might be completely dissolved, the commission's head, prominent Russian writer Anatoly Pristavkin, said
- JUNE 26, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
A Russian delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of...
A Russian delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe protested against PACE proposals to abolish the death penalty
- JUNE 26, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Russian regional authorities called for the death penalty...
Russian regional authorities called for the death penalty for drug dealers
- JUNE 25, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Alla Dudaeva, the widow of the first Chechen president...
Alla Dudaeva, the widow of the first Chechen president Dzhokhar Dudaev, called on the Nobel Prize Committee to strip Alexander Solzhenitsyn of the title of Nobel laureate because of his speeches in favour of restoring capital punishment for "terrorists"
- JUNE 21, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Scwimmer...
Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Scwimmer asked Turkey and Russia to sign European Convention of Human Rights protocol no
- JUNE 21, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Oleg Mironov, Russian human rights ombudsman, called...
Oleg Mironov, Russian human rights ombudsman, called on politicians to give up "populist slogans" calling for the death penalty to be restored
- JUNE 18, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Sverdlovsk region governor Eduard Rossel proposed to...
Sverdlovsk region governor Eduard Rossel proposed to introduce the death penalty for drug trafficking on the entire territory of the Urals Federal District for five to six years
- JUNE 5, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The public execution of rebels, proposed by North Caucasian...
The public execution of rebels, proposed by North Caucasian military district commander General Gennady Troshev, would be akin to the Sharia courts that have repeatedly executed women and children in public, the Ataman of the Terek Cossack Troop Vasily Bo
- JUNE 4, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Chechen Duma deputy Aslanbek Aslakhanov said he is...
Chechen Duma deputy Aslanbek Aslakhanov said he is ready to resign if the situation in his home republic does not change for the better
- JUNE 4, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The Presidential Pardons Commission, which has been...
The Presidential Pardons Commission, which has been operating for nine and a half years, may soon cease operating, rumours reported by the Nezavisimaya Gazeta said
- JUNE 4, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
General Gennady Troshev, commander of Russia's North...
General Gennady Troshev, commander of Russia's North Caucasus Military District, said life imprisonment is too mild a punishment for Chechen terrorists who have killed dozens of civilians
- MAY 31, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The Council of Europe said Russia's continued refusal...
The Council of Europe said Russia's continued refusal to abolish capital punishment could jeopardise its membership of the human rights and democracy watchdog
- MAY 31, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
The Commander of the North Caucasus Military District...
The Commander of the North Caucasus Military District Gennadiy Troshev spoke in favour of bringing back capital punishment in Russia
- MAY 29, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
In his report on the human rights situation in Russia...
In his report on the human rights situation in Russia in 2000, Ombudsman Oleg Mironov said that on the abolition of the death penalty, sociological surveys and opinion polls indicate that 71% of respondents considers capital punishment the most effective
- MAY 24, 2001RussiaDEATH PENALTY
Following his meeting with Secretary General of the...
Following his meeting with Secretary General of the Council of Europe Walter Schwimmer, Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov refused to admit a direct link between the abolishment of the death penalty and commitment to democratic values