Ivan Pavlov, visiting Australia as a winner of Human Rights Watch's Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism, told SBS News that Moscow is promoting a hard line against enemies - both abroad and at home.
"War time, which we have now, dictates war rules," he said.
"When the whole country lives with a militaristic rhetoric, somehow everybody knows who is the enemy. United States is first enemy, Ukraine is second, and [the rest of the] world is third."
But, Mr Pavlov said, the crackdown on enemies begins at home. He specialises in cases relating to national security and freedom of information issues – and he says there has been a spike in such arrests since 2014, when conflict began with Ukraine.
"Before 2014, cases with state treason were like three cases a year, and after 2014, it became fifteen cases a year. So an increase of five times," he said.
In 2016, former senior British spy Christopher Steele reached out to his Russian contacts as he compiled a dossier on then-US presidential candidate Donald Trump.
His final report contained suggestions of Russian election interference and compromising material, including videos involving sex workers at Moscow's Ritz Carlton, that could be used as leverage against Mr Trump.
"I don't know what they have on him, but I'm sure they have a lot from his visit," Mr Pavlov said, adding that he regards intelligence gathering on prominent visiting figures a standard practice by various different governments.
In the aftermath of the dossier's publication, there was a spate of arrests in Moscow, including leading cybersecurity expert Ruslan Stoyanov, and FSB state intelligence officers Dmitry Dokuchayev and Sergei Mikhailov – the FSB's deputy head of cyber operations, who was reportedly marched out of a meeting with a bag over his head.
sbs.com.au