The Kremlin blocked online access to 20 years of criminal records statistics, undermining efforts to track Moscow’s repression.

The 15 million records showed an explosion in convictions for treason, espionage, and “cooperation with foreigners,” Meduza reported.

It is part of a wider data blackout — in 2023 the prosecutor general stopped publishing crime statistics and parliament gave the government power to suspend any official dataset.

The practice of suppressing data unfavorable to governments is not limited to the Kremlin; China stopped publishing youth unemployment figures when they spiked three years ago, while Turkey has been accused of underreporting its inflation stats. Moscow may be keen to hide this data because it reveals how often defendants are conscripted to the war in Ukraine.