Moscow: Russia added more persons critical of the Kremlin to its list of “foreign agents” on Friday, including two exiled allies of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny and a popular musician.
The Russian justice ministry added eight names to the list, which now includes over 160 media outlets and personalities.
“Foreign agents” are subject to stringent restrictions and time-consuming processes, or they incur severe penalties.
They must include this information in all of their publications.
Vladimir Milov and Lyubov Sobol are two exiled allies of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was imprisoned in January 2021 and sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud in March.
Alisher Morgenstern, a popular rapper, has also been added to the list of “foreign agents.”
He aroused controversy among Russian war veterans in October 2021 when he stated in a YouTube broadcast that he “did not understand” why Victory Day over the Nazis was honored in Russia on May 9.
The Investigative Committee then stated that it was looking into the remarks to see if they were a “violation of the law” on “public insult to the memory of defenders of the Motherland” and “rehabilitation of Nazism.”
On Instagram, the rapper apologized, accusing the media of “distorting” his statements.
Boris Kagarlitsky and Leonid Gozman, two Russian political scientists, were also included in the list of “foreign agents.”
Since the beginning of Moscow’s military action in Ukraine on February 24, dozens of members of Russia’s intellectual elite and journalists have fled the country, as authorities increase pressure on the country’s last critical voices and media.
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