Foreign Agents in Russia - Doria

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Russian foreign agents. The definitions of NKOs do not exclude governmental organizations if they
are not foreign NKOs, so the definition in this perspective is broader than the definition of nongovernmental
organization (NGO).
The sixth section of the second article of the NKO Law (consultantplyus.) makes the basic
distinction and definition of the NKO's as foreign agents as following:
• A non-commercial organization acting as a foreign agent in the present Federal law is
a Russian NKO that receives money and other property from foreign states and their
public authorities, international and foreign organizations, foreign citizens, stateless
persons or persons authorized by them, and (or) from the Russian legal entities that
receive money and other property from specified sources (except for public companies
with state participation, and their subsidiaries), and is involved in political activities in
the Russian Federation.
In making the basic distinction of being an NKO acting as a foreign agent, the codification implies
that an NKO cannot be defined as a foreign agent if it is not Russian NKO. It must receive benefits
from non-Russian sources or Russian sources which receive money from abroad consequently
making each source of organization financing and donations throughoutly accounted. All the NKOs
receiving foreign money are required by the NKO Law's article 32’s third section to report on all the
funds received from foreign sources or foreign agent NKOs and to detail how these funds are
allocated or used in their annual reports to authorities. Further supported by amendments to the
article, the definition of a foreign agent NKO does not apply to organizations with any direct
Russian public (state or municipal) administrational participation in them. The Russian juridical
basic unit NKO compared to the internationally established NGO institutions, do not make
exclusion to governmental agency in the organization thus making already the starting point per se
different compared to the popular western idea of NGOs as basic units of civil society. Considering
this basic idea of NKOs with the definition according to which domestic administrative
participation in an NKO is a repealing factor for the foreign agent recognition, the idea of foreign
agent NKOs can be considered to have relatively much state influence compared to the basic idea of
NGOs where civil movements work independently.
The list of foreign sources of money and other property is holistically inclusive. Compared
to the definitions of political action of foreign agent, which as well is relatively inclusive, the
definition of foreign assets of foreign agents could be almost anything. Neither is there any
minimum proportion of foreign assets for an NKO to be defined a foreign agent. Such a wide scope
comprehension of foreign assets in foreign agent definition without any exceptions except the