On 25 January 2024, the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office designated Doxa Media, a Russian independent media outlet in exile, as an “undesirable organization”, de facto banning all of its activities in Russia. While the Prosecutor-General’s office did not directly comment on the case, the decision was announced on the Telegram channel of the Russian State Duma’s (lower house of parliament) commission for investigating alleged foreign interference in the internal affairs of Russia.
According to Russian MP Vitaly Piskarev, who was quoted by Russia’s state-controlled news agency TASS, the decision was made following an appeal to the Prosecutor-General made by the commission.
Piskarev claimed that Doxa Media was involved in “sabotage activities”, including “instructions on arson of military registration and enlistment offices, police departments and military equipment, calls for Russian military personnel to surrender to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, materials on resisting law enforcement agencies and seizing universities.” The Russian MP did not specify which Doxa Media articles he was referring to.
After its initial foundation as a student online media affiliated with Russia’s Higher School of Economics (HSE), the outlet was forced to sever ties with the university after having covered protests in Moscow in 2019. It then became a wider-public independent online outlet. Doxa Media’s website is blocked in Russia since the start of the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while the outlet’s journalists continue to work in exile.