On April 22, the term of Russia’s human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova, who had held the post since 2016, expired. The ruling United Russia party unanimously endorsed Yana Lantratova, a 37-year-old State Duma deputy from A Just Russia and chair of the committee on civil society development, effectively making her appointment all but certain.
Novaya Gazeta Europe says Lantratova’s career has been shaped mainly inside pro-government structures. Former member of the Presidential Human Rights Council Ilya Shablinsky recalled that during the inquiry into the death of five-month-old Umarali Nazarov in St. Petersburg, Lantratova, then the council’s executive secretary, took a position that excused the security officers involved.
“It was not that she defended them fiercely. She was simply performing her function,” Shablinsky said.
The article notes that in the 1990s the ombudsperson’s office had considerable political independence: the first commissioner, Sergei Kovalyov, publicly criticized the first Chechen war. The post was later held by Oleg Mironov and Vladimir Lukin, and then by more Kremlin-loyal figures, Ella Pamfilova and Moskalkova, under whom the institution was fully absorbed into the state vertical.
According to the report, Lantratova started in the Young Guard of United Russia, worked with Vitaly Milonov, and later co-founded the volunteer organization Union of Russian Volunteers, now known as Rosvolonter. Sources said that inside the Human Rights Council she was seen less as an independent rights advocate than as a conduit for the presidential administration’s line.
After the start of the war, Lantratova was also linked to the removal of Ukrainian children from occupied territories. In 2024, Ukrainian authorities charged her in absentia over alleged involvement in the forced deportation of children; she is under sanctions imposed by the EU, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand, Japan, and Ukraine. In 2025, she also campaigned against the Peace to All project, which assisted Orthodox priests who had spoken out against the war.
Political scientist Ekaterina Shulman said the possible appointment was part of a broader restructuring that would place the institution under tighter political control. Shablinsky likewise argued that Lantratova’s arrival would mark a further degradation of the ombudsperson’s office.