On 14 July 2023, a court in Moscow fined Tikhon Dzyadko, the editor-in-chief of TV Rain, Russia’s main independent TV channel, for not adding a disclaimer to his social media and other publications on the “foreign agent” status handed to him by Russian authorities. Dzyadko was fined 35 thousand rubles. The journalist was designated as a “foreign agent” in October, with Russian authorities claiming that he had received financing from Ukraine.
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 also barred from receiving state financing, teaching at state universities, working with minors and providing expertise on environmental issues, among other restrictions.