DEFECTORS WILL NO LONGER BE CHARGED WITH TREASON.

Russian citizens who choose to stay abroad and refuse to return home will no longer, as in Soviet times, be charged with treason. Russia’s Constitutional Court has ruled article 64 of the Criminal Code, which classifies escape from Russia and refusal to return as forms of high treason, unconstitutional. The ruling added, however, that disclosure of state or military secrets incurs criminal penalties under the law. The Russian Criminal Code punishes high treason by 10 to 15 years imprisonment or capital punishment. (9)

Chechnya: Russian Military Triumph at the Polls.