Russia has added teens to its ‘extremists and terrorists’ list eight times as often since war began, report finds

Since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, teenagers have been added to the Russian authorities' registry of “extremists and terrorists” eight times more often than before the war, according to a new study by the human rights group Department One.

On average, one in every 12 new names added to the list is a minor, the researchers found. As of early June, 465 people on the registry were teenagers between 14 and 17 years old. In total, at least 779 people have been added to the list before turning 18, including 49 girls.

This spring saw the youngest people ever entered into the registry, Department One noted: two teenagers who had just turned 14 when they were listed.

The pace at which minors are being added to the list is also accelerating. Between 2024 and 2026, 695 minors were added to the registry — almost 28 times more than in 2019–2021. In the first five months of 2026 alone, 200 teenagers were added to the list.

The vast majority of minors — 88.8% — are listed in the registry's terrorism category. That share has remained between 87% and 98% since 2023. Department One attributes this to the reclassification of offenses such as arson from “hooliganism” to “terrorism”, as well as to lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 14.

At least 37 minors on the registry are Ukrainian citizens. Ninety-five percent of them face terrorism charges. Many are being tried under Russian law in occupied Ukrainian territories. One of the Ukrainian teenagers was abducted at age 12 and is still listed as missing back home.

Memorial considers the prosecution of at least 20% of the listed minors, or 156 people, to be politically motivated.

Department One also found that people between 18 and 21 are increasingly being added to the registry: 401 were listed in 2025, compared with 92 in 2022.

‘An ideal target for manipulation’

One of the reasons minors are being added to the registry so much more often is that Russia is prosecuting them for actions that should not be considered crimes at all, Department One head Dmitry Zair-Bek told Novaya-Europe. He noted that teenagers are being tried for comments made online, jokes in school chats, and reading anarchist literature, among other behavior.

“On the other hand, there's a whole subcluster of young people being prosecuted under 'extremist' and 'terrorist' statutes for their antiwar convictions and actions,” Zair-Bek said. “But it's precisely that passion, that readiness to act independently, combined with limited life experience, that makes teenagers an ideal target for manipulation and provocation by the security services.”

The authorities’ lowering of the age of criminal responsibility to 14 for “terrorism” and “sabotage” charges has also driven the rise in the share of minors on the registry, he said. Russian security services, he added, are now increasingly provoking teenagers into committing such crimes, then presenting the cases as successfully “solved” investigations.

“Of course, not all extremism and terrorism cases are tied to the FSB and its partners,” Zair-Bek said. “Ukrainian intelligence services and affiliated structures are conducting active recruitment work inside Russia to carry out antiwar, terrorist, and sabotage actions in the country. This is a reality of wartime. Unfortunately, minors inside Russia are often among the victims of this practice too.”