NODOWN

The Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Yekaterinburg requested a bank account from the ZNAK.com news agency and constituent documents. This was reported on the website of the publication.

Aksana Panov, director and chief editor Znak.com, have already been invited to the PM Ekaterinburg Ministry of Internal Affairs and asked to provide information on financing the publication. "They said that a statement was received that Znak is funded by foreign structures, the US State Department, and now I need to prove that this is not the case. The application was written to the presidential administration, to the FSB, to the prosecutor's office," Panova said. She noted that she was refused to name the applicant.

Nevertheless, the edition of the publication is known that the denunciation was written by members of the Samara branch of the National Liberation Movement. They demanded to recognize the media as a "foreign agent."

The chief of staff of the Samara branch of the NOD Dmitry Gurenkov confirmed to Interfax that the audit against Znak.com was initiated by one of their activists after the December press conference of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

"Since the representative of Znak.com at the press conference of the National Leader asked questions, accusing statesmen and NODs, we realized that there was a real information war, and we suspect that this war was organized by the CIA and the State Department of the United States," Gurenkov said. "We asked to check this agency for cash receipts from abroad."

In December 2016, Putin’s press conference is Znak.com, Ekaterina Vinokurova, the head of state complained about the beating of a NOD activist in St. Petersburg by Kommersant's photographer David Frenkel.

Meanwhile, the status of a "foreign agent" under Russian laws can be assigned only to non -profit organizations, but not the media. In December 2015, a law was adopted, according to which the editorial office should notify Roskomnadzor of receiving foreign financing , and this requirement does not apply to payments for advertising or contributions from the founder. However, no other restrictions on receiving funds from abroad for the media have been established.