The Ministry of Justice has removed Yevgeny Ponasenkov from the register of 'foreign agents'

Historian and blogger Yevgeny Ponasenkov is no longer a “foreign agent”; the Ministry of Justice has decided to remove him from the register. “Mediazona” drew attention to this, and the information was also published on the ministry’s website. The reason for the status change: “no longer exhibits signs of being a foreign agent.”

Ponasenkov was added to the register on 1 April 2022. The Ministry of Justice cited “indirect foreign funding” as the grounds: the publicist received 15 payments from the Russian publishing house AST, which itself received money from abroad. The agency also noted that Ponasenkov distributed materials from media outlets labelled as “foreign agents.”

Later, when Ponasenkov tried to achieve removal from the register, the Ministry of Justice, as evidence of “foreign influence,” cited more than 30 videos, mostly filmed in Italy. According to the agency, in these videos Ponasenkov, through “allegories, metaphors and imagery,” discussed the “superiority of European statehood” and the “unattainability of Western civilisation” compared to Russia’s political and social system.

“Justice prevails. I have amazing lawyers; they have fought over every word for months. <…> First of all, my lawyers overwhelmed the authorities with documents. I never left [Russia]; every April and every October I am able to travel to Italy to study art history. I stroll around Moscow. Naturally, I will continue to work in Russia,” Ponasenkov commented on his removal from the register to the outlet “Ostorozhno, Novosti.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice has added to the register of “foreign agents.” Included this time: “What? Where? When?” show participant Yekaterina Mereminskaya; Muslim community activist Rinat Mukhametov; Elena Matveyeva, a supporter of Svetlana Lada-Rus from Novgorod region (north-western Russia); the Telegram channel “Channel of the Visionary”; and the Facebook group “Perm-36,” which shares news about political prisoners and is named after the local museum of the history of political repression in Perm, a city in the Urals.