Berlin, February 11, 2025—After a year that saw Russia increase its pressure on independent media and journalists, authorities are seeking to tighten the squeeze on dissenting voices from March 1 by blocking those designated as “foreign agents’” from access to their earnings.
The 2025 law requires those listed by the justice ministry as “persons under foreign influence” to open special ruble accounts into which all their income from creative or intellectual activities, as well as the sale or rental of real estate, vehicles, dividends, and interest on deposits, must be paid.
So-called foreign agents will not be allowed to withdraw their earnings unless they are removed from the register. However, the government can withdraw money from agents’ accounts to pay fines imposed for failing to apply that label to their published material or to report on their activities and expenses to the government — a legal requirement since 2020.
While the new law’s full impact remains to be seen, it looms as yet another threat for exiled media outlets already rattled by the prospect of losing funding after U.S. President Donald Trump’s freezing of U.S. foreign aid.
“It is clear that the legal pressure on journalists who stay in Russia — and those who have relocated — will increase,” Mikhail Danilovich, director of The New Tab, an exiled online magazine founded in May 2022, which has been blocked inside Russia due to its coverage of the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, told CPJ.
Digging in
In addition to the new law, a parliamentary commission proposed on January 28 an increase in foreign agent fines and a ban on their teaching or taking part in educational activities, such as hosting lectures or seminars.
These moves signal an ongoing determination to crack down on independent journalists already grappling with a plethora of sanctions, from fines to arrest warrants and jail terms.
While hundreds have fled Russia due to authorities’ suppression of critical coverage of the Ukraine war, others continue to report from inside the country. Nadezhda Prusenkova, head of Moscow-based Novaya Gazeta’s press department, estimated that about half of the journalists designated foreign agents still live in Russia.
“We saw a greater focus on pressure on independent media and journalists in 2024, including pressure related to the legislation on foreign agents,” Dmitrii Anisimov, spokesperson for the human rights news site OVD-Info, told CPJ.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, CPJ has documented 247 journalists and media outlets branded as foreign agents and six exiled journalists sentenced in absentia to jail terms ranging from 7½ to 11 years on fake news charges.
Although none of the journalists outside Russia have been taken into custody, the campaign against exiles has left many fearing for their safety – especially after three journalists who wrote critically about the war in Ukraine suffered symptoms of poisoning in 2022 and 2023.
Impact of the new law
Senior members of five independent media outlets that work with people designated as foreign agents told CPJ that it was unclear about how the new law will affect their journalists.
Novaya Gazeta’s Prusenkova said that the newspaper had “very few” designated foreign agents on its staff, and Latvia-based Novaya Gazeta Europe CEO Maria Epifanova told CPJ that her exiled staff accessed their earnings from Western bank accounts. However, there were worries about losing revenue from the sale or rental of homes they left behind, she said.
Ivan Kolpakov, editor-in-chief of the Latvia-based independent outlet Meduza and one of the first Russians to be labeled as a foreign agent, told CPJ that, “Frankly speaking, we have not complied with foreign agent legislation in any form since 2023 [when Meduza was banned as an “undesirable” organization.]”
Meduza is not alone in refusing to comply with the law, despite the risk of criminal prosecution. Media analysis of Russia’s judicial records found that only one-sixth of 620 fines issued in 2023 and the first half of 2024 were paid — 4 million rubles (US$40,453) out of a total of 25.8 million rubles (US$260,954).
Sergey Smirnov, the exiled editor-in-chief of the popular outlet Mediazona, could be jailed for two years if convicted in a criminal case opened against him in December 2024 on charges of failing to note on his content that he was designated a foreign agent. Smirnov, who fled to Lithuania from Russia in 2022 after being jailed for a tweet the previous year, is one of 18 journalists — 16 of whom live in exile — prosecuted or fined under the foreign agent legislation in the last quarter of 2024.
“It’s very simple: I’m not paying,” Smirnov told CPJ, undeterred by the potential consequences on his assets back home. “Technically, they could seize the apartment I co-own.”
‘Plague-stricken’
The situation for such exiles can be perilous. In late 2024, Russian authorities continued their cross-border retaliation against the media by ordering the arrests in absentia of exiled journalists Tatyana Felgenhauer and Kirill Martynov.
Some media veterans say they have become too desensitized to focus on their government’s latest legal maneuvers.
“I’m not following these new developments,” said Roman Anin, exiled founder of the Latvia-based investigative website IStories, who is facing arrest for spreading “false information” about Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine.
“I’m already on the wanted list, and IStories has been declared an undesirable organization, which is much worse than being labeled a foreign agent — a status both I and IStories already have,” he told CPJ.
“Russia today is like a plague-stricken part of the world, similar to places like North Korea. There’s no point in seriously discussing what the so-called lawmakers in this system have come up with now.”
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
Committee to Protect Journalists | Radio Free (2025-02-11T18:18:16+00:00) Russia preps to block income of ‘foreign agent’ journalists. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/02/11/russia-preps-to-block-income-of-foreign-agent-journalists/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.