Not to survive with a stigma

The Levada Center appeals in court a decision of the Ministry of Justice to recognize the "foreign agent". This was stated by NPO Director Lev Gudkov, Interfax reports .

"We will try to challenge this act, because it is to eliminate violations to abandon partnerships with foreign research centers and commercial firms. This is a very important source of money for us, which we then redistribute for our own research. We do not have other sources of financing," Gudkov said.

Studies of the Levada Center, some of which last more than 20 years, are funded by the distribution of funds from commercial orders, the head of the NPO noted. “If we refuse this, we will have to reduce the entire range of our research,” Gudkov emphasized. He noted that the studies, on the basis of which NPOs were recognized as an “ino -agent”, were not financed at the expense of the US Department of Defense and did not concern political issues.

At the same time, the Levada Center does not consider the possibility of becoming a commercial organization, the head of the NPO noted. An autonomous non -profit organization cannot change its legal status, it can only be liquidated with the transfer of all assets to the state.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Justice said that NPOs received a significant part of foreign financing from the United States. “The verification established that the“ Analytical Center of Yuri Levada ”in the audited period received most of the foreign financing from the United States, including a grant from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, a supervising institution in which the US Department of Defense is listed,” the Ministry of Justice said.

Among other sources of foreign financing of the devad-center, the Ministry of Justice was called the IPSOS MORI UK LTD (Great Britain); Fafo ais as (Norway); Fernland Holdings Ltd (Switzerland); Deutsche GesellSchaft Fuer Technische Zusammenarbeit Gnbh (Germany); Gallup Inc (USA); Viesoji Istaiga (Lithuania); University of WisConsin Madison; Regents of University of Colorado; Columbia University; The George Washington University; Moscow branch of Jones Day Limited Partnership (USA).

On Monday, the Ministry of Justice included the Levada Center in the list of "foreign agents" . “This is a very bad thing for us,” Gudkov said then. If the Ministry of Justice’s decision cannot be challenged, the sociologist explained, it is possible that the Levada Center will have to be closed. “Because with such a stigma, conducting public opinion polls is simply impossible,” he explained.

Gudkov added that the audit, begun by the denunciation of Anti -Maidan, was carried out, from his point of view, "carelessly and very tendencial." “It was carried out and extremely inaccurate all this was carried out,” the sociologist added. “They complied with a political order.”

The demonian to Alexander Konovalov “Anti -Maidan” filed a denunciation of the head of the Ministry of Justice in mid -July . The Black Hundreds demanded to conduct an audit on the receipt of the Levada Center of Foreign Grants. "The Levada Center, according to the US government website ... On public procurement, continues to conduct research on the US Department of Defense by order of the University of Wisconsin," the paper said.

The University of Wisconsin, said in Anti-Maidan, acts as an intermediary between the Pentagon and the Levada Center. "By order of the American military, employees of this Russian sociological service collected information in Moscow and regions," the denunciation said.