Russia's St. Petersburg Legal Forum turns ideological battleground

The 14th St. Petersburg International Legal Forum ran from June 24-26, 2026, but bore little resemblance to the respectable gathering once championed by then-President Dmitry Medvedev. Officials called cohabitation a national security threat, questioned constitutional rights, proposed Islamic law as a legal guide, and warned that AI could replace "foreign agents" spreading separatism, all delivered with a straight face.

The 14th St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPILF) took place June 24-26, 2026, offering a striking illustration of how Russia's legal and intellectual establishment has transformed since the forum was founded in 2011 by the Justice Ministry under the patronage of Dmitry Medvedev, a trained lawyer who was president at the time. What once presented itself as a credible international legal gathering has evolved into a platform for ideological conservatism, anti-Western rhetoric and constitutional revisionism.

Cohabitation as a "security threat"

Deputy Justice Minister Vadim Balanin set the tone early, warning that unmarried cohabitation constitutes a direct threat to national security and the country's "demographic health." The remark encapsulated the forum's overarching theme: the subordination of individual rights to state interests.

Justice Minister Konstantin Chuyichenko went further, suggesting that the post-Soviet constitutional emphasis on civil rights and freedoms, enshrined in Russia's 1993 Constitution, had been a mistake. «It seems to me that this is not quite the right approach, because one without the other is impossible,» he said, implying that state power and individual rights must always be balanced against each other, with the state holding the scales.

Rewriting the Constitution

Businessman Konstantin Malofeev, known for his ultra-conservative Orthodox activism, called for a rethink of Chapter 2 of the Constitution, which guarantees fundamental rights. «Yes, there are rights and freedoms of a person and citizen there, but it is thoroughly liberal ideology,» he argued, adding that the text says nothing meaningful about citizens' duties. He also offered a historical aside, suggesting that if the Decembrists had been fewer in number, fewer «exalted young ladies and grammar-school students from Siberia» would later have been inspired by their revolutionary ideas.

Presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky weighed in on governance, comparing the Provisional Government of 1917 to bloggers who seized power, «the most helpless and incapable government in our history», and drawing the same analogy for the early Bolsheviks. The remark appeared intended as a warning against technocratic or media-driven governance.

Islamic law, sobornost, and AI separatism

RSUH rector Andrei Loginov revealed that President Vladimir Putin had personally suggested replacing the concept of "collectivism" with the Orthodox theological term sobornost (spiritual communality) in public discourse. Loginov also floated the idea that women's constitutional right to abortion on demand contradicts the Constitution, a claim he said deserves serious legal scrutiny.

Mufti Ravil Gainutdin proposed that Islamic legal tradition, rooted in the Quran and Sunnah, could serve as a meaningful guide for Russian legal practice, describing its principles as «organically consonant with the traditional values of Russia's peoples.»

Deputy Justice Minister Oleg Sviridenko raised the alarm about artificial intelligence, arguing that AI could soon replace the role once played by "foreign agents" in spreading separatist and extremist content online. He insisted that only «Anglo-Saxons and Americans» truly exercise sovereignty over the internet, making Russia vulnerable. He also referenced the television programme Besogon, a show hosted by director Nikita Mikhalkov known for conspiracy theories, as a source of relevant instruction on extremism.

Medvedev on colonial reparations

Dmitry Medvedev himself appeared at the forum and called on countries of the "global majority" to demand reparations from Western nations for colonial and neo-colonial practices dating back to the Age of Discovery. The speech underlined how far Medvedev, once seen as a modernising, pro-Western figure, has travelled ideologically since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The forum thus mirrored its founder's own trajectory: from a symbol of cautious liberalisation to a vehicle for increasingly strident state conservatism.