Kremlin claims there is nothing political about adding NGO Levada-Center to foreign agent list

First deputy head of the Presidential Administration Vyacheslav Volodin has said that the decision to add independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organization Levada-Center is not politically motivated, reported newspaper RBK on Thursday.

Volodin also said that certain non-profit organizations had successfully managed to have themselves removed off of the foreign agent list in the past, citing economist Yevgeny Yasin’s Liberalnaya Missiya Foundation as just one example.

On September 5, 2016, Russia’s Ministry of Justice announced that Levada-Center had been added to the country’s list of foreign agents as per the result of an impromptu inspection.