Vasily Piskarev: Russia Shares its Experience in Combating Interference in Internal Affairs

At the fourth meeting of Chairmen of the Committees and Commissions on International Affairs, Defence and Security of the Parliaments of the CSTO Member States, Vasily Piskarev, Chairman of the State Duma Commission on Investigation of Foreign State Interference in the Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, shared information on Russia's legislative experience in protecting its sovereignty.

Vasily Piskarev told his colleagues from the CSTO states about the external forces' attempts to influence the election campaign during the preparation and holding of the Russian presidential election that had been detected by the Commission's monitoring group.

Vasily Piskarev noted that in the context of intensified attempts to interfere in the elections, there is a need to create new international socio-political institutions to examine electoral processes, which will not be completely monopolized by the West and will not take political orders.

“Such a well-known organization as the OSCE ODIHR has discredited itself and is no longer suitable for this role due to its absolute bias,” the head of the State Duma Commission emphasized.

Vasily Piskarev pointed out that the targets of aggressive and destructive external influence on Russia “are children and youth, citizens' health, finances and economy, territorial integrity of the state, spiritual and moral values, as well as electoral processes.”

"This has forced us to develop additional legislative countering measures against all subjects of interference in the internal affairs of our state. In particular, we have raised criminal liability up to 6 years of imprisonment for involving children in criminal activities through the Internet. The liability for terrorism, sabotage or involvement in such activities has been raised up to life imprisonment; strict criminal liability has been introduced for providing financial or other assistance to a foreign state in activities against Russia's security," Vasily Piskarev shared with his colleagues from the CSTO parliaments.