The Russian Ministry of Justice has declared human rights activist Oleg Orlov and the head of Wikimedia RU Stanislav Kozlovsky “foreign agents”

The Russian Ministry of Justice has updated the list of “foreign agents” ( .pdf ), including six people.

The list includes:

• Oleg Orlov, Chairman of the Board of the Human Rights Center "Memorial",
• Stanislav Kozlovsky, executive director of Wikimedia RU , former associate professor of the Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University,
• Anton Kartavin, independent deputy of the Novosibirsk Council of Deputies from the Novosibirsk 2020 coalition,
• Mikhail Chimarov, photographer and activist from Veliky Novgorod,
• Nikita Sokolov, historian, former employee of the Yeltsin Center,
• Sergey Stepanov, journalist from Tambov.

The Ministry of Justice stated that Orlov, Sokolov, Stepanov and Chimarov “opposed the special military operation in Ukraine,” Kartavin disseminated false information about the actions of the Russian authorities, and Kozlovsky participated in the creation of “foreign agent” materials and “cooperated with foreign information platforms, the activities of one of which are considered undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation.”

• Stanislav Kozlovsky said in December 2023 that the MSU management decided to fire him, fearing that the psychologist would be declared a "foreign agent." After that, the Wikimedia RU community decided to close the organization; the process of liquidating a legal entity, as reported, could take several months.
• At the end of 2021, the Moscow City Court ordered the liquidation of the Memorial human rights center, and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation made a similar decision regarding International Memorial. The liquidation was initiated by the prosecutor's office, which accused the organizations of violating the law on "foreign agents."