In Russia, a criminal case was opened for failure to fulfill the duties of a foreign agent

The Tver department of the Investigative Committee of Russia initiated a criminal case under the article on failure to fulfill the duties of a foreign agent against Artem Vazhenkov, the coordinator of the “Voice” observer movement. Human rights defender Pavel Chikov reports that this may be the first case under this article.

Vazhenkov was included in the register of so-called foreign media agents immediately after the September elections to the State Duma in 2021. He left the country and did not mark his messages with the wording “created by a foreign agent”, as required by law. For this, the court fined him twice – 10 and 50 thousand rubles.

According to the alleged article, the “Voice” coordinator faces up to two years in prison. He said in a telegram that a criminal case “should be expected”. Vazhenkov believes that the matter is connected with the fact that he deals with the problems of legislation on foreign agents. In the Telegram channel “Avtozak LIVE” he called the existence of such a concept a “shameful phenomenon”.