The Open Government Ministry was dissolved in 2018, its former head is under criminal prosecution. Despite the amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation on issues of state unified statistical accounting of data on the state of crime, as well as on reports of crimes, investigative work, inquiry, prosecutor's supervision, and the many auditing and open data powers assigned to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, due to the Covid19 crisis, the government has reduced transparency of information on all procurement by the Federal Security Service (FSB) as well as the army. By September 2020 these amendments have not been approved; instead these have been introduced to close procurement of Roskosmos, the national space agency, state corporation too. While some transparency remain in relation for instance to the publication of data related to Covid-19, the political will to open data in all areas of government is lacking.

These are the main changes to the procurement law in light of Covid-19 in force from April 2020

a. It is possible to purchase without bidding (from a single supplier) any goods, work or services for the provision of medical care in an emergency or urgent form, as well as in the case of force majeure circumstances; the introduction of a high alert regime to prevent an emergency has been added to the list of grounds for such procurement as well.

b. The government of the Russian Federation has the right until 31 December 2020 to establish new grounds for procurement from a single supplier and determine the procedure for such purchases.

c. The requirements regarding the need for preliminary selection and request for quotations in the case of a single supplier procurement to eliminate the consequences of natural and man-made emergencies have been removed.

d. There is no restriction on the volume of purchases from a single supplier of goods necessary for the above-mentioned purposes (first bullet), if the use of time-consuming competitive methods of procurement is impractical; however, according to the position of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (letter as of 18 March 2020): the covid-19 pandemic should be treated as a force majeure, but the causal relationship of the target and the subject of procurement from a single supplier is important.

e. In 2020, the parties to the contract by mutual agreement will be able to change the period of its execution and/or its price (unit price of goods, work, services) if, under the previous conditions, the contract cannot be executed due to circumstances beyond the control of the counterparts (a special mechanism for such amendments is provided).

Updated: October 31, 2020

The Open Government Ministry was dissolved in 2018, its former head is under criminal prosecution. Despite the amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation on issues of state unified statistical accounting of data on the state of crime, as well as on reports of crimes, investigative work, inquiry, prosecutor's supervision, and the many auditing and open data powers assigned to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, due to the Covid19 crisis, the government has reduced transparency of information on all procurement by the Federal Security Service (FSB) as well as the army. While some transparency remain in relation for instance to the publication of data related to Covid-19, the political will to open data in all areas of government is lacking.

Peer reviewer: 1

Updated: April 30, 2020

Last info on implementing the Charter was in 2015; ; Open Government Office was dissolved in May 2018, its ex-head is now under arrest Russia tax authority is creating a register of companies accounts, but make direct access to it via paywall of $4,500 one access per year (individual requests are still free of charge).

Updated: October 30, 2019

According to the FT "Mr Medvedev appointed Mr Abyzov — who previously chaired a support group for him — to the cabinet in 2012, where he was in charge of the Open Government, a vaguely defined transparency initiative that rejected nearly all of the public petitions submitted to it. "

Peer reviewer: 1

Updated: October 30, 2019

The General Prosecutor's office claims that current bill on introducing unified federal criminal statistics system is complying with Open Data Charter principles.

Peer reviewer: 2

Updated: October 30, 2019

October 2018 update: Russia has been excluded from G8 and therefore is no more bounded by Open Data Charter.

Updated: October 30, 2018