Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a federal law that significantly expands the list of places where meetings, rallies, marches, and demonstrations are prohibited. The document was published on the official Internet portal of legal information.

Thus, it will be impossible to hold rallies in the buildings of public authorities and their surrounding areas, airports, railway and bus stations, ports, in the buildings and areas of universities, schools and hospitals, land plots where churches and other structures are located. In addition, the ban will apply to the areas adjacent to life support facilities, including those providing the functioning of electricity, heat, water and gas networks. Now it is forbidden to hold rallies only near the buildings of the presidential residence, courts, emergency services and facilities of the Federal Penitentiary Service.

The new law also provides that each region can additionally introduce its own bans on gatherings, rallies, and demonstrations, if such a measure is "conditioned by the historical, cultural, or other objective features of the subject of the Russian Federation."