First Department” has found that the FSB is involved in the process of designating organisations as “undesirable.”

The FSB is involved in the decision-making process of granting organisations “undesirable” status, reports the human rights project “First Department.” The project cites materials from the lawsuit of the publisher of the Norwegian online newspaper Barents Observer, which challenged this designation.

Today, the Tverskoy District Court in Moscow rejected the claim filed by Independent Barents Observer AS. The organisation argued that the Prosecutor General’s Office’s decision of 7 February 2025 to recognise it as “undesirable” was unlawful.

According to “First Department,” the law stipulates that three agencies participate in the process of labelling an organisation “undesirable”: the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. The Prosecutor General’s Office reviews the organisation’s activities and, in agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, makes the decision to declare it “undesirable.” The Ministry of Justice adds the organisation to the list and publishes information about it on its website.

However, materials from the Barents Observer publisher’s lawsuit show that the FSB and Roskomnadzor are also involved in this process.

“First Department” writes that it has obtained a “practically a report” signed by Vladislav Menshikov, Head of the 1st FSB Counterintelligence Service. In this document, the FSB provided the Prosecutor General’s Office with screenshots of Barents Observer content and links to this material. The document states that the newspaper’s activities “pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and are directed against the security of the state.”

Another letter to the Prosecutor General’s Office came from Roskomnadzor, which provided analysis of internet resources “for the presence of information in violation of the law.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also sent the Prosecutor General’s Office a “reference material” on Barents Observer, which, according to the ministry, has a “pronounced anti-Russian orientation.”

All of these reports totalled about 250 pages, most of which consisted of excerpts from newspaper articles, screenshots of “anti-Russian propaganda,” and arguments from oversight and security agencies.

“These documents show how much importance the Russian authorities attach to journalism. Various government agencies and ministries spent hundreds of hours analysing our articles. It is striking how many high-ranking people are involved—for example, Lieutenant General Vladislav Menshikov, head of FSB counterintelligence,” Barents Observer notes.

The newspaper believes that the Russian authorities want to hide from the public any material about the consequences of the invasion of Ukraine.

“Journalism is not a crime. Our reports from the Arctic regions of Europe and Russia deserve to remain freely accessible to all,” Barents Observer insists.

• The Barents Observer has operated since 2002. It is a Norwegian online newspaper covering events in Scandinavia, Russia and the Arctic in English and Russian. In 2015, the Norwegian media outlet NRK, citing a source, reported that the FSB demanded the Norwegian authorities shut down Barents Observer. At the time, the paper was under the control of the Norwegian Barents Secretariat—an agency of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs dedicated to developing Norwegian-Russian relations. Following a decision by the Secretariat, Barents Observer dismissed editor Thomas Nilsen, who had criticised the Russian authorities. The paper’s team then continued its work independently of the Secretariat.
• In 2017, Nilsen was banned from entering Russia “for reasons of state security.” Two years later, Roskomnadzor blocked the paper’s website, and in February 2025 Barents Observer was designated an “undesirable organisation.”