Russia Labels Bellingcat Investigative Outlet ‘Foreign Agent’

(Bloomberg) -- Russia’s Justice Ministry on Friday branded investigative website Bellingcat a “foreign agent,” a measure it’s deployed against Russian and foreign media and non-government organizations.

Bellingcat has published exposes of alleged Russian spy operations, including the surveillance by a clandestine Federal Security Service unit specializing in poisons of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. The Kremlin critic narrowly survived a nerve-agent attack in Siberia last year that he and Western governments blamed on Russian secret services. Russia denied any role in his poisoning.

The head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, in August accused Bellingcat of being staffed by former foreign secret service agents.

The designation of Bellingcat came on the same day that Dmitry Muratov, one of the founders of independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, won the Nobel Peace Prize together with a journalist from the Philippines.

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