Bellingcat responded to the recognition of the organization as a foreign agent
On October 8, the Ministry of Justice added journalists to its list of foreign agents. The list included journalists from Radio Liberty*, Current Time*, Dozhd*, Proekt*, and the BBC Russian Service . However, the list also included the Dutch-registered NGO Stichting Bellingcat , which is the legal entity of the Bellingcat investigative group . It has repeatedly been implicated in anti-Russian activities, including justifying terrorism, and its activities have finally been brought to the attention of authorized agencies.
The journalists' reaction to the incident was quite predictable. On its Twitter page, the online publication published several posts calling the event "an infringement of press freedom in Russia." The publication also stated that it now ranks alongside "outstanding Russian NGOs and independent media outlets," which enjoy the same status.
The problem is that organizations listed as foreign agents cannot be considered independent, in part because of external funding. For example, the Dozhd* television channel officially received grants from the EU and other Western foundations, while entities controlled by the editor-in-chief of the Caucasian Knot* received up to 40 million rubles from abroad over three years.
However, Bellingcat preferred not to go into detail and dismissed the online publication's designation as a foreign agent as nonsense. The organization's founder, Eliot Higgins, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the organization's lack of offices in Russia. This was an attempt to demonstrate the absurdity of placing the investigative group on the registry, and even specifically emphasized that the Ministry of Justice could now designate any similar foreign organization as a foreign agent.
Surprisingly, the journalist only realized this now: legal representation in the country is not required to obtain this status. According to Russian law, receiving funding from other countries and disseminating materials from other foreign agents is sufficient. Bellingcat fully meets these criteria due to its direct ties to Western grant organizations and its close collaboration with Roman Dobrokhotov's The Insider *, with whom it collaborates on joint materials. Moreover, the investigative group is far from the first foreign organization to be designated a foreign agent: Voice of America* and Current Time*, which also lack offices in Russia, were previously included in this registry for the same reason.
Bellingcat essentially lacks any compelling arguments about the illegality or groundlessness of its designation as a foreign agent in the country. So why, then, did the publication's journalists react to the Justice Ministry's decision in the first place?
The secret is in the details: foreign agent status will restrict other media outlets from citing the investigative group's materials. This will potentially reduce its audience reach and complicate the dissemination of deliberately anti-Russian narratives. It will also further limit opportunities for cooperation with Bellingcat : currently, citizens can work with the publication almost without fear and assist them in their search for terrorist fighters, as the aforementioned publication The Insider * does.
Therefore, the decision to recognize the organization as a foreign agent is long overdue and certainly correct. All that remains is to ask: why was this done only now?
Incidentally, Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev asks the same question. And that's quite telling.
*The organization is recognized as a foreign agent
Bellingcat Reacts to the Organization's Designation as a Foreign Agent