The Ministry of Justice added sociologist Grigory Yudin to the register of “foreign agents”. This is reported on the department's website.
The updated list of “foreign agents” also includes the editor-in-chief of the publication “Verstka” Lola Tagaeva, the head of the “Activatika” project and defender of the Khimki forest Evgenia Chirikova, former deputy of the Smolensk Regional Duma Vladislav Zhivitsa, Karelian activist Vladislav Oleynik, lecture hall “Living Word” and “Committee of Ingush Independence”.
According to the Ministry of Justice, Zhivitsa, Oleinik, Tagaeva, Chirikova and Yudin opposed the “special military operation” and disseminated “unreliable information” about the Russian authorities. The Living Word lecture hall, the department claims, “actively interacted with foreign agents.” In addition, Zhivitsa and the “Ingush Independence Committee” called for separatism.
Vladislav Zhivitsa was elected as a deputy of the Smolensk Regional Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in 2018. Last August, a month before the expiration of his mandate, he proclaimed the “independence of the Smolensk Republic” in Warsaw.
Evgenia Chirikova has been living in Estonia since 2015. In 2012, she participated in the elections for the mayor of Khimki and took second place, losing to United Russia member Oleg Shakhov.