MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s justice ministry on Friday designated online news outlet VTimes a “foreign agent” media organisation, a move that will require it to label itself as such and subject it to increased government scrutiny.
VTimes was set up last year by group of journalists who quit Vedomosti, a top Russian business newspaper, after accusing their new editor-in-chief of introducing pro-Kremlin censorship.
Russia last month applied the same foreign agent label to Meduza, a popular independent news site.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Vladimir Soldatkin; writing by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; editing by Tom Balmforth)