The State Duma adopted in the third reading a bill prohibiting Russian companies from placing advertisements with participants in the register of “foreign agents.” This is stated on the website of the lower house.
The amendments also prohibit other platforms from advertising the “foreign agents” themselves.
395 deputies were listed as co-authors of the amendments when they were introduced. Deputy Vasily Piskarev claimed that over the past year, “over 200 Russian individuals and legal entities” purchased advertising from register participants in the amount of “more than 130 million rubles.”
Another deputy, Right Russia member Mikhail Delyagin, called Yuri the target of the amendments Dudya and other authors of YouTube channels. For example, the register of “foreign agents” includes journalists Katerina Gordeeva and Irina Shikhman, the creator of the “Editorial” project Alexey Pivovarov and political scientist Ekaterina Shulman.
The bill makes changes only to the law “On Advertising”. According to Piskarev, “if a foreign agent continues to violate the law and place advertisements, then liability has already been provided — administrative and criminal.”
The Code of Administrative Offenses has an article for register participants on “failure to comply with the restrictions provided for by the legislation on foreign agents” (Part 8 of Article 19.34). Two fines under it allow, if there is a similar reason, to initiate a criminal case against a person (Article 330.1 of the Criminal Code).
In July 2023, deputies also allowed to fine people who were not included in the register of “foreign agents”, but, According to the Ministry of Justice, they “assisted” the registry participants in circumventing “violations.” Part 42 of Article 19.5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses provides for fines of up to three hundred thousand rubles for such cases.