MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. Journalists working for the Moscow-based REN TV channel have tapped and exposed the sources of financing of a number of Russian off-parliamentary opposition groups. On Friday, April 28, the channel will air a special documentary project ‘Liberals Off the Books’, the press service of the channel said on Thursday.
Otkrytaya Rossiya (Open Russia) founded by former Russian oil industry tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is one of the focal groups in the film. Its authors probed into the situations where "members of the movement who did not have official revenues spent impressive sums in rubles and foreign currencies."
The channel says the film brings into spotlight the facts of abuse of law and illicit financial transactions, thus unveiling "the entire set of patterns by which ‘Russian liberalism’ gets finances - from overseas disbursements to cash paid under the table."
Following the scrutiny of previously obtained materials, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia passed a decision on April 26 to recognize the activity of three nongovernmental organizations financed from abroad to be undesirable for the Russian Federation.
"Upon the results of scrutiny of the materials obtained by the Prosecutor General’s Office, we passed a decision on April 26 to recognize the undesirable character of activity of the following foreign nongovernmental organizations on the territory of Russia - the OR (Otkrytaya Rossiya, the UK), the Institute of Modern Russia (the U.S.), the Open Russia Civic Movement, and Open Russia public networking movement (the UK)," the official spokesman for the Office, Alexander Kurennoi told TASS on Wednesday
The aforementioned organizations were carrying out the programs and projects aiming to discredit the results of elections in Russia and to declare them illegitimate, he said.
"Their activity aims to inspire public protests and to destabilize the internal political situation, thus posing a threat to the foundations of the constitutional system and security of the Russian Federation," Kurennoi said.
"The Prosecutor General’s Office has sent information on its decision to the Justice Ministry for including these organizations in the list of NGOs, the operations of which in Russia are deemed undesirable," he said.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky instituted Otrkrytaya Rossiya in November 2015. He announced his resignation from the position of chairman of the Open Russia movement at a conference in Tallinn on April 15, 2017.