Russian Ministry of Justice declares World Wildlife Fund, economist Sergey Guriev ‘foreign agents’

The Russian justice ministry updated its registry of “foreign agents” on the evening of March 10.

New additions include economist Sergey Guriev; politician Gennady Gudkov; the former head of Yandex.News and creator of news aggregator True Story, Lev Gershenzon; blogger Nika Vodvud; journalist Daniil Gubarev; and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

According to the ministry, Guriev “spoke negatively about service members in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” and “disseminated untrue information in foreign publications about the decisions and policies of the government of the Russian Federation.”

The WWF, the ministry claims, “under the guise of protecting nature and the environment […] tried to influence the decisions of the executive and legislative branches of the Russian Federation, and to hinder the completion of industrial and infrastructural projects.”

The WWF told Meduza that it will seek to challenges its inclusion on the registry in court, and that it will continue “to protect rare animal species and preserve Russia’s natural world.”