Russia has outlawed an investigative media portal for publishing a report last year that alleged President Vladimir Putin had secretly fathered a daughter outside his marriage. The country’s prosecutor general declared the portal, Proekt Media, an “undesirable organization,” as it “posed a threat to the foundations of constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation,” according to a report in Bloomberg.
The article, published by Proekt, had claimed that the daughter of a multi-millionaire woman who is a shareholder in Bank Rossiya bears a close resemblance to Putin. The bank is under the control of Yury Kovalchuk, a billionaire close to Putin. The report was dismissed by the Kremlin as “tabloid fodder”. Putin was married to Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Ocheretnaya till 2014 and the couple have two daughters.
The media outlet has also published investigative pieces exposing alleged corruption and abuses by top officials and tycoons close to Putin.
Russian authorities have designated its editor, Roman Badanin, and several of its reporters as “foreign agents”. Badanin and several journalists working for the portal were also subjected to raids in June under a 2017 defamation case, just as Proekt was getting ready to publish an investigative report on interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and his wealth.
The Russian government has outlawed more than 30 groups under a 2015 law that made membership in “undesirable” organisations a criminal offence. Besides Proekt, two popular independent outlets — Meduza and VTimes — have been designated as “foreign agents” in recent months. Last month, a Moscow court outlawed organisations founded by Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny for allegedly being extremists.
