Part of the employees of Russian departments, state companies and state corporations became effectively restricted to travel abroad after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. According to Sistema, an investigative project of Current Time and Radio Liberty, some were directly asked to deposit their passports.

Citing sources in the leadership of one of the state-owned companies, officials of the regional government and the manager of a travel company, the journalists note that in some cases, civil servants were asked to deposit the document with the FSB, in some cases - to a special department at their place of work.. Dissenters offered to resign. As a result, in one of the state-owned companies, some employees wrote statements of their own free will.

In some cases, the FSB officers hinted that in case of refusal to hand over the passport, it could be “annulled” and it would be impossible to travel abroad using it..

At the same time, according to investigators, there is no single rule or order regarding international passports.. For employees of various organizations, they limited themselves to a strict recommendation to avoid foreign holidays - someone was banned from any trip abroad, someone - outside the zone of the Eurasian Economic Zone or the CSTO.

One of the officials of the federal authorities clarified to journalists that the ban “at the level of general knowledge” applies to everyone who has at least some level of access to state secrets - they are not asked to hand over their passports directly, but they will not be allowed to go on vacation abroad.

A source close to the Putin administration claims that most Kremlin employees “are not even trying” to leave. At the same time, another source said that in 2022 some people calmly traveled to “neutral” countries, but the head of the Kremlin administration Anton Vaino could personally sign permission for such a trip..

Sources of journalists in Russian ministries speak of an “individual approach”, when some employees are allowed to leave “for good reasons”, someone is issued an acceptable list of countries, or a civil servant signs a notice that he does not intend to visit foreign countries, but leaves anyway, and. There is also an agreement to leave for civil servants with a warning from the authorities “only no photos in social networks”.

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Journalists note that the current Russian laws and regulations make it possible to restrict the exit of officials and employees of state-owned companies, as well as to confiscate their passports if they have access to state secrets. For military personnel, current and former employees of the FSB, the ban on leaving is valid for five years after the dismissal. However, these norms began to be used especially often after the capture of Crimea in 2014.. Then the restrictions were extended to law enforcement officers and judges, who were advised not to visit "