The analytical report “Criminal Law Risks Associated with the Execution of Public Contracts in the Russian Federation (2020–2025)” is devoted to a systematic analysis of law-enforcement practices in which the execution of state and quasi-state contracts in Russia increasingly becomes a source of heightened criminal law risk for participants in economic activity.

The study focuses on a persistent shift toward the criminalization of relations that, by their legal nature, belong to the sphere of civil, budgetary, or administrative regulation. The report identifies a reproducible pattern whereby managerial decisions, commercial disputes, technical difficulties, and financial deviations arising during the execution of public contracts are consistently transferred into the realm of criminal prosecution—often without establishing criminal intent, personal enrichment, or actual damage to public interests.

The report proceeds from the premise that in legal systems based on the principles of legal certainty and the separation of types of legal liability, criminal law should function as a measure of last resort, applicable only in cases of proven fraud, corrupt collusion, embezzlement, or other intentional offenses. However, in Russian practice during the period 2020–2025, the opposite tendency is observed: criminal law instruments are increasingly used as a universal response to economic risks and managerial failures in the sphere of public procurement.

The report provides a detailed analysis of the institutional and procedural mechanisms underlying this transformation. Particular attention is paid to the role of supervisory bodies, investigative authorities, and expert institutions, whose findings and calculations often become decisive for criminal qualification. At the same time, priority is frequently given to formally established indicators of damage and documentary inconsistencies, while the factual circumstances, economic rationale, and context of decision-making are marginalized or ignored.

Based on statistical data and the analysis of specific criminal cases, the report documents a steady increase in the number of cases related to public contracts, accompanied by an extremely low rate of acquittals. This dynamic correlates primarily with the expansion of public procurement volumes, increased budgetary financing, and strengthened supervisory functions, rather than with a growth in detected profit-driven crimes. The highest concentration of criminal cases is observed in strategically sensitive sectors, including infrastructure projects, construction, the defense industry, healthcare, and digital and technological programs.

A separate section of the report is devoted to state defense procurement, which is examined as the most concentrated and institutionally entrenched manifestation of the described model of criminalization. In this area, lowered standards of proof, expansive interpretation of criminal offenses, and significant restrictions on procedural safeguards for the defense are observed, largely due to secrecy regimes and the closed nature of case materials. As a result, participation in defense and strategic programs effectively entails the acceptance of disproportionately high criminal law risks.

The report also pays particular attention to the expansion of the circle of persons subject to criminal prosecution. Criminal liability increasingly extends beyond individuals who formally made key managerial decisions to include founders, beneficial owners, ordinary employees, contractors, and subcontractors, and in some cases individuals mentioned solely in the testimony of third parties. This practice undermines the principle of personal guilt and gives criminal liability a quasi-collective character.

The procedural features characteristic of this category of cases are examined in detail, including the early initiation of criminal proceedings before civil or administrative remedies are exhausted, restricted access of the defense to case materials, the dominance of witness and accomplice testimony over documentary and economic evidence, and the broad use of coercive procedural measures. Taken together, these elements form an accusatory model of criminal prosecution oriented toward confirming the initial investigative narrative rather than establishing factual truth.

The report further identifies a stable typology of criminal law qualifications most frequently applied in the context of public contracts. These include fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation, abuse and excess of official authority, official forgery, and negligence. The analysis demonstrates that these legal constructs are often used as universal tools for the criminalization of economic activity, regardless of its actual economic nature.

On the basis of the identified patterns, the report develops an analytical risk model designed for the preliminary assessment of criminal law risks associated with participation in public and quasi-public projects. This model may be applied in compliance analysis, legal audits, and assessments of cross-border risks, including scenarios involving international cooperation, extradition, and mutual legal assistance.

The report’s findings are of particular significance in the international context. The documented law-enforcement practices raise serious questions regarding the reliability of criminal accusations advanced in the framework of requests for international legal assistance, extradition, international wanted notices, and asset seizure. A formal criminal qualification that is not supported by evidence of intent and personal enrichment requires heightened critical scrutiny by foreign jurisdictions and international institutions.

The report does not seek to assess the guilt or innocence of specific individuals and does not aim to review individual criminal cases. Its purpose is to identify institutional mechanisms, law-enforcement trends, and structural risks that create an environment of heightened criminal law uncertainty in the sphere of public procurement. The conclusions are intended for use in analytical, expert, and human-rights work, as well as for informing international law-enforcement and oversight bodies assessing the quality of criminal prosecution and its compliance with international standards.