Russia’s wanted list. An updated and user‑friendly database

Previous findings

Our initial investigation, published in February 2024, revealed that Russia is actively seeking foreigners it describes as “mercenaries” serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We also found dozens of European politicians and officials, including Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who are wanted on criminal charges in Russia.

Several months later, we discovered that another national leader, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, had been added to the list, though the notice was quickly removed after our report. The most likely explanation was a local initiative by the police department in occupied Donetsk.

In August 2025, the Ministry of Internal Affairs completely overhauled the list, adding people wanted in connection with very old criminal cases. Investigators also added political scientist Ekaterina Shulman and rapper Face (Ivan Dremin)—and then immediately hid the entries. Both had already been sentenced in absentia on “foreign agents” charges, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs never returned them to the wanted list.

Latest update: UK Defence Secretary and Georgian Defence Minister

Overall statistics

From September 2025 to March 2026, 31,211 new notices were added to the list. Of these, 21,659 relate to criminal cases, while the remainder are for missing persons.

The number of notices deleted from the database since our initial publication has risen from 55,319 to 71,701. This does not necessarily mean a wanted person has been detained or that the charges have been dropped; the exact reasons for these deletions are not always clear.

People added to the database in this latest update (since September 2025) are marked with a plus sign (+). Those removed since our first publication are marked with an X.

Wanted politicians

In January 2026, a notice for former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, secretly accused of “justifying terrorism,” was added to the wanted list. It is not clear exactly what triggered his prosecution in Russia, but the likeliest cause is Wallace’s remarks about Crimea made in September 2025: “I think what we have to remember is what motivates Putin. Putin is in love with the idea of dominating Ukraine, taking Ukraine, ‘Crimea is Russia.’ <...> If you read his speeches of 2014 he compares Crimea to the Holy Mount. <...> So we have to help Ukraine have the long range capabilities to make Crimea unviable. We need to choke the life out of Crimea.” Several days later, Mikhail Sheremet, the State Duma representative from the occupied Crimea, demanded that Wallace be placed on the list.

Another recent addition is Oleksandr Turchynov, who served as acting president of Ukraine in 2014 and later as speaker of the Verkhovna Rada. Moscow has accused him and dozens of other Ukrainian government officials of genocide.

Since late 2022, Russian authorities have been persecuting members of the Ukrainian Renaissance Centre, which both Moscow and Kyiv consider a totalitarian sect. Only now, however, has Russia placed its founder, Volodymyr Muntyan, on the wanted list. The centre itself has been declared an “undesirable” organization in Russia, but the charges against Muntyan are unknown.

At the end of 2025, Russia also added former Georgian Defence Minister Irakli Okruashvili to the wanted list. The reasons remain unclear. Around the same time, Okruashvili was sentenced to seven years in prison by a Georgian court in the high-profile case of the killing by police of teenager Buta Robakidze in 2004; Okruashvili, who headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs at the time, was found guilty of abuse of power.

Foreigners in the AFU

The number of foreigners whom Russian investigators appear to be seeking on account of their participation in the war on the Ukrainian side remains essentially unchanged: among them, 466 people from the “Rybar List” and 290 who have been mentioned in one way or another in connection with their service in the AFU.

The list of “terrorists” and “extremists”

Since our March 2025 update, we have begun annotating entries where a wanted person's full name and date of birth match those on the official list of “terrorists and extremists”, maintained by Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s financial intelligence unit. For now, we are only noting the match itself, as we do not have more detailed information.

The list now includes people charged with spreading “fake news” about the Russian army, as well as those accused of various other offences under the Criminal Code that the authorities consider politically motivated or “extremist”.

Mediazona thanks Ivan Shukshin for providing the Rosfinmonitoring data.

Belarusian citizens on Russia’s wanted list

As we have previously observed, the Russian Interior Ministry includes on its wanted list people sought by its Belarusian counterparts, including those persecuted for political reasons. In the seven months since our last update, 1,118 citizens and natives of Belarus have been added. Among them are former political prisoners, journalists, human rights defenders, and opposition activists.

The database

Just like before, we are publishing the complete, searchable list of people wanted by Russia. You can search for names across the entire database or within specific categories. These categories are not exhaustive; our work aims to uncover and document politically motivated prosecutions. If you notice something that has escaped our attention, please contact Mediazona.

A reminder: the absence of a name from our database—or indeed from the Ministry’s own website—does not guarantee that a person is not facing criminal charges. The database is not a definitive record, and its omissions do not confirm a person’s innocence or the absence of a criminal case against them.

Download the data: GitHub (.csv file)