Charges we handle beyond this list

We wrote separate pages for drug offences, smuggling, fraud, bribery, forged documents, sexual offences, theft, violent crime and migration offences because those are what families actually write to us about. A page that tried to cover the whole Code would help nobody.

The consequence is that a charge under any other article can look, from the outside, like something we do not do. It is not. The practice is criminal defence — the articles that get their own page are the ones that get asked about most, not the ones we are limited to.

The charges below appear less often against foreign nationals, but they do appear — several of them regularly enough that we have current cases under them:

• Article 264 — road traffic offences causing serious injury or death. Common where the accused was driving for work, and heavily affected by whether alcohol is alleged.
• Article 213 — hooliganism, and Article 214, vandalism. Frequently charged after an incident in a public place that began as something much smaller.
• Articles 318 and 319 — violence against, or insult of, a representative of authority. These attach to almost any confrontation with police and are often added to a detention that was itself contested.
• Article 163 — extortion, and Article 160, misappropriation. The economic neighbours of fraud, and regularly charged in the alternative to it.
• Articles 198 and 199 — tax offences, where a business is involved.
• Article 222 — unlawful handling of weapons, including items the accused did not regard as weapons at all.
• Articles 272 to 274.1 — computer offences, from unauthorised access to interference with critical infrastructure.
• Article 207 — false report of an act of terrorism, which arises from calls and messages made in anger or when drunk far more often than from anything else.

This list is illustrative, not exhaustive. If the article you were given is not here either, that still does not mean the answer is no.

The stage of the case matters more than the number of the article. Whatever the charge:

• the right to a defence lawyer arises from the moment of actual detention, not from the charge;
• a court decides on custody within forty-eight hours;
• an interpreter is compulsory and free of charge for anyone who does not command Russian;
• the consulate has the right to be told, under the Vienna Convention;
• the appeal window is fifteen days from the verdict, and continuous cassation six months from it entering force;
• a foreign national who is convicted will normally face administrative removal after the sentence, on a separate timetable.

Everything on the services pages applies regardless of which article is charged.

The article number and the part, if you have it. The city and the investigative body. The date of detention and whether a court has already ruled on custody. If there is already a verdict, its date and whether an appeal was filed.

If you do not know the article number, say so — it can be established through the investigator or the consulate, and we do that as a matter of course. What we will not do is tell you the case is promising before we have read it.