The Unseen Assembly: Russia’s Final Blackout on Parliamentary Transparency

The international community and human rights organizations have viewed this as part of a broader, systemic crackdown on information within Russia. Against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine and the recent full blocking of YouTube for a one-year period, the photography ban is a localized symptom of a national fever for censorship. The Kremlin is increasingly obsessed with "traditional values" and the "dignity of the state," concepts that are now being used as legal shields to hide the very real and often mundane failures of the people tasked with running the country.