Kasyanov, who was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first prime minister from 2000 to 2004, is now on the Ministry of Justice’s “foreign agents” registry.
The ministry accused Kasyanov of being “against the military spy operation in Ukraine” and of being a “member of the Russian Anti-War Committee,” and described the organization as “an association whose activities aim to discredit Russia’s foreign and domestic policy.”
The Russian Anti-War Committee, with very limited activities, was established abroad last year by several opponents of the Russian government, including former oligarch in exile Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
After Putin fired Kasyanov as prime minister in 2004, Kasyanov joined the opposition and became one of the most vocal critics of the Kremlin.
Kasyanov, who had led the opposition People’s Freedom Party (PARNAS), criticized the brutal war started by the Kremlin in Ukraine in an interview with the German broadcaster “Deutsche Welle” in mid-May last year. In June 2022, he announced that he had temporarily left Russia.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands of Russians, including prominent Kremlin critics, have left Russia.
2023-11-25 06:14:46
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