The Ministry of Justice added writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya and the charity foundation “Need Help” to the register of “foreign agents.”
In addition, the department’s updated list includes director Ilya Khrzhanovsky, former deputy of the Perm City Duma Sergei Medvedev and the Memorial human rights center.
According to the Ministry of Justice, Medvedev, Khrzhanovsky, Ulitskaya and Memorial opposed the invasion of Ukraine and criticized the Russian authorities. In addition, Ulitskaya “promoted LGBT relations,” and Medvedev collaborated with an unnamed “undesirable” organization. The “Need Help” Foundation, according to the department, “provided support to organizations included in the register of foreign agents.”
The Memorial Human Rights Center was previously recognized as a “foreign agent” — in 2014. In December 2021, the Moscow City Court liquidated Memorial at the request of the prosecutor's office. The department insisted that the organization systematically violated the law on “foreign agents” and also “justified terrorism and extremism.”
In January, Sergei Medvedev was early deprived of parliamentary powers for a post on VKontakte, in which he wrote, that he wants to “see Russia free from shackles Putin,” and called the president a “monster” and “creature.”