Russia adds four more media to ‘foreign agents’ registry

The Russian government has added four more media outlets to ‘foreign agent’ registry list.

The Russian Justice Ministry announced on Friday that it had added four legal entities to its controversial registry of “foreign media performing the functions of a foreign agent”: Altair 2021 LLC, Vega 2021 LLC, Editor-in-Chief 2021 LLC, and Romashki Monolit LLC.

According to the statement, all four were founded by Russian journalists who had previously been named as individuals to the registry: former Open Media correspondents Maksim Glinken and Ilya Rozhdestvensky; former Open Media editor in chief Yulia Yarosh; and former Proyekt (The Project) journalists Yulia Lukyanova, Sonya Groysman, Maria Zheleznova, Olga Churakova, and Pyotr Manyakhin.

The four new entities to the “foreign agent” list add to the number of independent media outlets and journalists identified as “foreign agents” or “undesirable” — labels that imply an attempt to discredit the journalists or that apply additional government scrutiny.

Russia’s controversial “foreign agent” legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.

With this four, Russia’s foreign agent registry has reached a total of 47.

Read the full list of the media outlets added to Russia’s “Foreign Agent” Registry here.