Russia’s Justice Ministry has added the international public movement “In Defense of Voters’ Rights ‘Golos’” to its registry of “undesirable” organizations.
The Prosecutor General’s Office declared the movement “undesirable” in late June 2026, according to the registry. The ministry itself made no announcement.
The registry entry provides no details about the movement.
Stanislav Andreychuk, a former co-chair of the Russian voters’ rights movement Golos, wrote he had no idea what “international” movement the designation referred to. He said that a nationwide movement called Golos had previously existed and been designated a “foreign agent” in Russia — meaning the Justice Ministry itself recognizes it as a Russian organization. Andreychuk stressed that Golos had always been “a Russian organization of purely Russian citizens.”
“What this [international] movement is, I personally have no idea. None of my former colleagues I’ve managed to speak with have created anything like that or had any plans to. And there’s nothing like it in the public sphere. Basically, it looks like our own state decided, as a precaution, to create something sufficiently vague during the election period, so that anyone whose behavior or position it doesn’t like during the voting days or immediately after can be added to it,” he wrote.
Golos had been operating since 2000, first as an association and then as a movement. In 2013, Russia’s Justice Ministry declared the association a “foreign agent,” after which some of its members formed the Golos movement, which also engaged in election monitoring. It was likewise declared a “foreign agent.”
In July 2025, Golos announced it was ceasing operations — a decision that came after the movement’s co-chair, Grigory Melkonyants, was sentenced to five years in a penal colony on charges of organizing the activities of an “undesirable” organization. Russian authorities have not declared either the Golos association or the Golos movement to be “undesirable” organizations.
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