On Friday, the Russian judiciary described former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov as a “foreign agent.” He became an opponent of the government after leaving office and left Russia in 2022 to denounce the war in Ukraine.
The name of Kasyanov, who was Vladimir Putin’s first head of government in the early 2000s, is now on the Justice Ministry’s register of “foreign agents.” This notorious designation is reminiscent of the term “enemy of the people” in the Soviet era.
The ministry accuses Kasyanov of being “against the special military operation in Ukraine” and “being a member of the Russian Anti-War Committee, an association whose activities aim to discredit Russian foreign and domestic policies.”
That committee, whose activities are very limited, was founded abroad in 2022 by several Russian dissidents, including exiled former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Kasyanov was Putin’s prime minister during his first years in power, from 2000 to 2004, and subsequently became a vocal critic of the Russian president.
Before the attack in Ukraine, Kasyanov headed the People’s Freedom Party (Parnas), a small liberal party. In June 2022, he announced that he had left Russia.
“Foreign agent” status imposes strict administrative restrictions on the persons or entities involved, including regular checks on their sources of financing. Every post, including one on social media, must also be labeled as a “foreign agent.”
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