Political analyst Sergei Markov said his inclusion in the Justice Ministry’s registry was unjustified. He insisted that he is not a “foreign agent” and added that, in his view, this is well known.
“I am not a foreign agent. Everyone knows that perfectly well. For all 25 years I have supported, and continue to support, Vladimir Putin’s policies. And I am under Canadian sanctions,” Markov said angrily.
Markov has in fact been under Canadian sanctions since 2022 for supporting Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Although he said he was bewildered by the designation, he immediately began adding the required disclaimer to posts on his personal Telegram channel after the ministry’s decision. Many others on the registry are regularly fined for failing to use that label.
The ministry says the analyst created and distributed materials from “foreign agents” and “undesirable organizations.” This includes comments and interviews he gave to various media platforms that had already been assigned restrictive and censorial labels by the state.
Another reason cited by the Justice Ministry was Markov’s alleged dissemination of “false information about the actions of the Russian authorities”. It is unclear from the published wording what exactly the ministry meant.
“As I understand it, someone decided to pick on the fact that I gave interviews to Western media, defended Russia’s interests there, and defended Vladimir Putin? Great. Great and stupid,” Markov said.