Russia Uses Facial Recognition System to Track Ukrainians Wanted for Arrest

In Russia, Ukrainian citizens whom Moscow seeks to arrest have been added to the facial recognition system’s database.

Recently, in St. Petersburg, police detained a man whom the system identified as Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon.

However, during the document check, it turned out that he was Dmitry Galyaminsky, the vocalist of the rock band “Freedom is More Important than Fashion,” who resembles Gordon.

One of the officers touched the musician’s face and hair to check whether he was wearing makeup or a wig.

After confirming they were not dealing with a Ukrainian journalist, the musician was released.

In 2024, a Russian military court sentenced Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Gordon in absentia to 14 years in prison.

Gordon was found guilty in the Russian Federation of publicly calling for “terrorism, spreading so-called war fakes, inciting hatred or enmity, as well as calling for nuclear strikes on the Russian Federation and calling for the elimination of the presidents of Russia and Belarus.”

Wanted Ukrainians

Russia has a large-scale video surveillance system with facial-recognition capabilities, integrated with a citywide network of cameras.

Facial recognition algorithms:

• analyze the video stream in real time;
• compare faces with databases of wanted persons;
• send a signal to law enforcement agencies in case of a match.

The incident in St. Petersburg showed that Ukrainians who publicly support Ukraine in the war with Russia are being added to the database.

If a foreign person is officially added to a wanted or watchlist database, they are monitored in the same way as Russian citizens.

It was recently reported that Russian hackers have hacked more than 170 email accounts of Ukrainian prosecutors and investigators in recent months.