On 8 August 2025, the Russian Ministry of Justice designated Prodolzheniye Sleduyet, a media project by Novaya Gazeta journalist Pavel Kanygin, as a “foreign agent”.
Russian authorities claimed that Prodolzheniye Sleduyet (which translates as “To Be Continued”) opposed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, “promoted the LGBT movement”, as well as created and distributed content by other “foreign agents” and “undesirable (banned) organizations”. The Ministry of Justice recalled that Kanygin was himself earlier designated as a “foreign agent”.
Initially adopted in 2012, Russia’s law on foreign agents has been revised several times over the past decade to include an ever-wider range of potential targets for state-sponsored discrimination. Currently, any organization, media or private individual can be designated as such simply by being declared to be “under foreign influence” by the Russian Ministry of Justice or because of receiving funds of any amount from abroad (or from an entity itself receiving foreign funds). “Foreign agents” are barred from receiving state financing, teaching at state universities, working with minors and providing expertise on environmental issues, among multiple other restrictions.