Medvedev restricts the right of foreigners and stateless persons to possess land

On January 9, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed a decree "On Approving the List of Pre-Border Territories, where Foreign Citizens, Stateless Persons and Foreign Legal Entities May not Hold Titles on Land". The list includes lands of six regions of the North-Caucasian Federal District and five regions of the Southern Federal District.

The list of pre-border territories, where foreigners cannot become owners of land estates was approved in accordance with point 3, Article 15 of the Land Code of the Russian Federation, and includes 380 territories.

In the regions of the North-Caucasian Federal District, restrictions are introduced in Dagestan, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia. In the Southern Federal District, restriction for foreigners, stateless persons and foreign legal entities are introduced in the districts of the Krasnodar Territory, the Republic of Kalmykia, and the Volgograd, Astrakhan and Rostov Regions.

Pavel Krasheninnikov, Chairman of the Russian Duma Committee on civil, criminal, arbitral and procedural legislation, explained the ban by the restrictions, which exist in pre-border territories. "There's nothing unusual, exactly the same restrictions exist in other countries around the world," he said.