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The Ministry of Justice has updated its list of ‘foreign agents,’ adding eight more individuals, according to a statement on the agency’s website.
This week, the following were added to the register:
- Denis Shedov, OVD-Info analyst and member of the board at the Memorial Human Rights Centre;
- Violetta Fitzner, OVD-Info lawyer and board member at the Memorial Human Rights Centre;
- Elena Zhemkova, former executive director of International Memorial;
- Nataliya Sekretareva, head of the legal department at the Memorial Human Rights Centre;
- politician Andrey Pivovarov;
- Ruslan Kutaev, president of the Assembly of Peoples of the Caucasus;
- Oleg Kozlovsky, researcher at Amnesty International;
- Rustam Solntsev (Kalganov), blogger and former participant in the reality show Dom 2.
The Ministry of Justice stated that all of them took part in the creation and distribution of messages and materials from ‘foreign agents,’ and that Kutaev and Pivovarov also spoke out against the war.
The agency also claims that Pivovarov, Kutaev, Sekretareva, Fitzner and Shedov spread false information about decisions by the Russian authorities, while Rustam Solntsev, in addition, ‘carried out the promotion of LGBT relationships.’
- In July 2022, Andrey Pivovarov was sentenced to four years in prison and banned from public and political activity for eight years. Pivovarov was found guilty of involvement with an ‘undesirable organisation’ (Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code) because of 30 Facebook posts and one repost of an Open Russia publication. In August 2024, he was released as part of a prisoner exchange.
- In 2014, Ruslan Kutaev was sentenced to three years and ten months on drug possession charges (Part 2, Article 228 of the Criminal Code). Kutaev himself said that the case was brought against him after he organised a conference dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the 1944 deportation of Chechens and Ingush, which he held despite a ban from Chechnya’s head, Ramzan Kadyrov. He reported being tortured after his arrest.