Russia labels Bellona “Undesirable Organization”

Originally founded in Norway in 1986, the Bellona Foundation worked actively to improve nuclear safety, reduce industrial pollution and establish alternative energy production in northern Russia for more than three decades. The group’s offices in Murmansk and St. Petersburg developed close cooperation with official and private stakeholders in Russia and internationally aimed at finding solutions to ecological challenges, including the nuclear waste dumps along the coast to the Barents Sea and at industrial sites like Norilsk and Nikel.

The announcement by Russia’s top prosecutor is strong-worded.

Bellona’s work is “aimed at undermining the Russian economy, discrediting the domestic and foreign policy pursued by the authorities, destabilising the socio-political situation in the country and poses a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation.”

The General Prosecutor says the organization, in particular, finances non-profit organizations that acts as “foreign agents”, and “attempts are being made to influence Russian legislation in order to change it.”

Bellona’s Murmansk office was declared “foreign agent” in 2015. Two years later, in 2017, the main office in St. Petersburg got the same branding from Russia’s Justice Ministry.

The General Prosecutor’s Office tells that it has studied Bellona’s work in Russia and has no informed the Ministry of Justice about the decision to included the environmental foundation it the list of international NGOs whose activities are recognised as undesirable in the country.

The Chief Procurator also argues that Bellona “has been actively involved in anti-Russian information campaign and discrediting Russia’s Armed Forces.” This has been the case since the beginning of “the special military operation by Russia to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine,” the text reads.

…. article will be updated.