Kuban environmentalists treat repeated inclusion of their colleagues into register of foreign agents as example of pressure on activists

The repeated inclusion of the "Civil Initiative against Environmental Crime"* into the register of foreign agents is an example of authorities' pressure on eco activists, environmentalists from Kuban (Krasnodar Territory) assert. According to their version, due to authorities' pressure, many colleagues have abandoned their public activities.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 9, 2022, Dmitry Shevchenko, the head of the "Civil Initiative against Environmental Crime"*, reported that the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) failed to find any foreign funding for the Initiative and excluded it from the register of foreign agents. However, this August, it was again included there.

"This time, unlike in 2019, the adoption of this decision is completely devoid of legal procedure," Mr Shevchenko has stated, linking the decision with the fact that the Initiative had conducted public environmental control and environmental monitoring, which irritated officials.

Tatiana Tribrat, a member of the environmental council under the governor of the Krasnodar Territory, has noted that in the city of Novorossiysk alone, 11 environmental organizations have closed since the introduction of the law on foreign agents. According to her story, people understand that they will not be allowed to engage in ecology; and they themselves are closing their organizations under pressure.

Valery Brinikh, an ecologist and the director of the "Institute of Regional Biological Studies", also believes that the inclusion of the "Civil Initiative against Environmental Crime"* into the register of foreign agents is "pressure on a public association of environmentalists demanding that order be restored in the environmental sphere."

He gave his example of fighting with the authorities against persecution. "In 2014, persecution began for my environmental activities on charges of extremism, and in 2015 I was charged ... It took two years of my life, nerves and health ... I achieved the closure of the case, but almost went blind ... This is the price that the fight with the authorities turns out to be for public figures who want their country to prosper and fight for it," he has stated.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.