The court closed the case on involvement in an “undesirable organisation” due to a reference to a news item by “The Agency.”

The Yoshkar-Ola City Court has discontinued the administrative case over ‘participation in the activities of an “undesirable organisation”’ (Article 20.33 of the Code of Administrative Offences) that had been initiated against Alexey Seregin. He announced this himself on his Telegram channel.

The case was triggered by his post containing a link to a news article by “Agentstvo.” This media outlet does not hold “undesirable organisation” status, but law enforcement in effect equated it to the investigative outlet “Proekt,” which the authorities have labelled as “undesirable.”

A note from Centre “E,” attached to Seregin’s case files, stated that the journalists who founded “Agentstvo” previously worked for “Proekt” and are planning to continue with similar investigative journalism.

“Obviously, the prosecutor’s office will most likely appeal, but has there ever actually been a case in Russia where a foreign agent has won a court case against the authorities over censorship and political charges?” Seregin commented on the decision. Since 2024, the journalist has been listed as a “foreign agent.”

Soon, the court will consider another case against Seregin under the same article. This case arose because of a post by the journalist summarising a “Proekt” investigation into nepotism in the upper echelons of Russian power. Notably, the post did not contain a link to the outlet’s website.