Foreign agent legislation has become a significant and controversial phenomenon worldwide, formally justified as a mechanism for ensuring transparency and countering external interference. Yet, such laws carry substantial risks, as they can be instrumentalized to stigmatize and constrain civil society, suppress independent voices, and normalize repressive governance practices. Russia represents a striking example: its “foreign agent” framework, first introduced in 2012, gradually expanded into an extensive mechanism of control, increasingly used to marginalize and exclude dissent. This study investigates the evolution of the “foreign agent” (FA) concept in Russian official discourse of parliamentary debates, tracing its institutionalization in the legal framework and its subsequent securitization. Using thematic discourse analysis grounded in post-structuralist securitization theory (Laclau & Mouffe), the research analyzes how representations of FA shifted from a formally neutral, technical category toward a signifier of disloyalty, betrayal, and treason. The findings show how discursive strategies enabled the normalization of restrictions and justified the gradual expansion of the law, embedding the FA construct within broader narratives of confrontation with the West.