Russians Handed Over 150 Thousand Denunciations Against Each Other To The FSB Over The Year

The practice of whistleblowing in Russia has become systemic.

During 2025, Russian citizens sent almost 150,000 reports of alleged offenses to the FSS via the helplines. According to the report published on the service's website, the central hotline received 68,785 calls, and territorial departments received another 77,772. Of these, the FSB called only 455 and 15,233 reports "operationally significant" respectively. The rest were characterized by the agency as "reference and informational," reports The Moscow Times.

After the subsequent checks, 18 citizens were brought to criminal responsibility under articles on "terrorism" and "sabotage." The law enforcers also opened 20 cases of false bombings, three people were convicted for disseminating "false information of a terrorist nature," and four others were brought to administrative responsibility.

The practice of whistleblowing in Russia became systemic after the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine. As calculated by the "Beware of the News" publick, only Z-patriots from the beginning of 2024 to April 2025 wrote at least 350 public denunciations, about 40% of which led to the cancellation of events, criminal proceedings or forced apologies. Ekaterina Mizulina, head of the Safe Internet League, was the most effective: 60% of her appeals resulted in prosecution of citizens. Also among the active whistleblowers are the "Russian Community", the movement "Forty Forty", Vitaly Borodin and the organization "Call of the People".

In various structures began to appear internal mechanisms to encourage such messages. For example, since January 2026, in Nizhny Novgorod region, officials who report an attempted bribery are paid a bonus of half their salary. At the Presidential Academy of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, students and teachers were obliged to report violators of the "code of ethics". The Rossiya airline ordered employees to denounce colleagues with anti-war views, and Penza State University ordered employees to report "strange behavior" of acquaintances. The Znanie Society has posted a form for complaints about "suspicious" lectures by "foreign agents."

Separate initiatives concern health care. The Women for Life Foundation has launched a chatbot where pregnant girls are invited to report doctors, relatives or partners who advise them to have an abortion. And the Russian Orthodox Church, using the help of "volunteers," has checked more than a thousand private clinics and sent 732 appeals to supervisory agencies to punish medical institutions for performing abortions.

The Russian Interior Ministry, in turn, has issued a methodology for citizens to identify "terrorists," recommending denouncing people in "inappropriate clothing for the season," with large bags or with "overly focused" facial expressions.

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