Justice Ministry declares journalist Arkady Babchenko a ‘foreign agent’

Russia’s Ministry of Justice has added journalist Arkady Babchenko to its list of “foreign agents.”

The ministry says that Babchenko “raised funds for Ukraine’s Armed Forces and disseminated, including via modern information technology, false information about the authorities’ decisions and policies.”

Babchenko has lived outside of Russia since 2017, and frequently criticizes the government of the Russian Federation. In June of 2018, when Babchenko was living in Ukraine, it was reported that he had been killed. A day later it emerged that the murder had been staged and Babchenko was alive. Ukraine’s Security Service said they had to stage the murder to unmask an assassination plot by Russian intelligence services.

Babchenko has been on a list of terrorists and extremists maintained by Rosfinmonitoring, the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, and has been on Russia’s federal wanted list, maintained by the Internal Affairs Ministry, since 2023.