Russia's Justice Ministry has declared Olga Romanova, the founder and head of Russian prisoner advocacy organization Russia Behind Bars, and 11 other activists as foreign agents.
Russia Behind Bars, which was itself listed as a foreign agent in 2018, has been advocating protecting the rights of people held in Russian pretrial detention centers, prisons, and penal colonies.
Since the start of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Romanova and her organization have actively covered the recruitment of inmates from prisons and penal colonies for the war there -- first by the Wagner mercenary group and then by the Russian Ministry of Defense itself.
In March, Romanova and her group revealed that Russia was sending female prison inmates to work in occupied regions of eastern Ukraine.
In addition to Romanova, 11 more people were added to the register of foreign agents: journalist and Crimean Tatar activist Aider Muzhdabaev; former vice-president of Gazprombank Igor Volobuev, who is now fighting in the Ukrainian military; economist Vitaly Zhukovsky; Yelena Malakhovskaya, the presenter of the Navalny Live channel established by imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei Navalny; journalist Sergei Kovalchenko; researcher of war graves Vitaly Votanovsky; civil activists Yevgeny Domozhirov, Anvar Kurmankaev, Andrei Rudoy, Andrei Sidelnikov, and Diana Rudakova, the ex-head of Navalny’s headquarters in the central Russian city of Tambov.
Since 2012, Russia has used its so-called foreign agent laws to label and punish critics of government policies.
It also has been increasingly used to shut down civil society and media groups in Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The law allowed the Justice Ministry to label nonprofit organizations as “foreign agents” if they receive funding from abroad and are engaged in political activities.
The criteria by which such activities are determined are not clearly defined in the law, allowing authorities to persecute organizations working in the field of education, culture, health, environmental protection, and the defense of human rights.
Subsequently, it became possible to declare media and individuals “foreign agents,” including those who do not receive foreign funding but are “under foreign influence.” Russian legislation does not specify what exactly should be considered foreign influence.