The lawyer told the Russians about the fines for expired Russian passport abroad

Russian citizens who have expired their internal passport while staying abroad will be required to pay a fine. Lawyer Ekaterina Dukhina told about this on April 23.

"When a citizen applies for a passport change, an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs reportedly sees that the old document is expired. If there are no mitigating circumstances, he issues a decree imposing a fine from 2 to 3 thousand rubles (in Moscow and St. Petersburg from 3 to 5 thousand rubles) and immediately issues it to the citizen," Dukhina said in an interview with RIA Novosti.

She clarified that after receiving the decree, the citizen has two months to pay the fine. Otherwise, he risks facing a doubling of the penalty amount or with the appointment of correctional labor for up to 50 hours. If there are aggravating circumstances, the expert added, arrest for up to 15 days is possible.

Dukhina also noted that it is impossible to obtain a new Russian passport while in another country. At the same time, the procedure for obtaining a foreign passport becomes much more difficult with an invalid Russian passport.

"An expired passport with an expired internal one can be obtained abroad by applying for a new one. If the internal one has expired, the procedure is more complicated — confirmation of citizenship, a certificate of return, obtaining an internal one in the Russian Federation after paying a fine. With the expiration of the internal period, obtaining a new document outside the Russian Federation is a task that is close to impossible in complexity," the lawyer said.

On March 29, the Main Directorate for Migration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia listed actions in case of passport loss abroad. So, a citizen should contact the Russian embassy so that intruders cannot use the lost passport. At the same time, the foreign passport will be marked by the Ministry of Internal Affairs as invalid from the date of receipt of the relevant message from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.