In 2013 Nariman Memedeminov, a citizen of Ukraine, posted reports on the web about events organised in Crimea by Hizb ut-Tahrir, an organisation at that time legal in Ukraine, but banned in the Russian Federation. The FSB has charged Nariman Memedeminov, a resident of Crimea, with publishing on YouTube, between February 2013 and March 2014, videos containing “public incitement to terrorism, including statements intended to engage other persons in the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami” - an organisation designated as terrorist in Russia in 2003.

On 13 March 2018, five days before the presidential election in Russia, EPDE and its Lithuanian member IESC were listed as "undesirable organisations" by the Russian Ministry of Justice. The listing limits, in the first instance, the rights of Russian citizen election observers and isolates them from international election observation and contacts with experts from other countries. The Russian state can impose a high fine, as well as even a prison term of up to six years on every Russian citizen who cooperates with the EPDE in order to promote democracy in Russia.

Another wave of assaults on opposition activists has rolled through St. Petersburg. Among the victims are human rights activist Dinar Idrisov, Open Russia member Oleg Maksakov, Solidarity activist Vladimir Shipitsin, Artpodgotovka supporter Vladimir Ivaniutenko, and, possibly, the dead activist Konstantin Sinitsyn. All the victims figured on social networks in the Group of Unique People.

On 13 March 2018, the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), a civil society network of independent election observation organizations, and its Lithuanian member International Elections Study Center (IESC) were classified as "undesirable organizations"by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.

Russian lawmakers have given preliminary approval to a bill that would enable the government to brand some individual journalists and bloggers -- not only media outlets -- as foreign agents. The bill, passed in the first of three readings in the State Duma on January 12, allows the Justice Ministry to designate people who are "performing the function of a media outlet" as foreign agents.

A city court in St. Petersburg has sided with Attorney General’s Office and liquidated the “Workers’ Association” Interregional Trade Union. Federal prosecutors argued that the union operated as a “foreign agent,” accepting money from abroad and lobbying Russian lawmakers. The court didn’t rule on the labor union’s “foreign agent” status, but it agreed to dissolve the organization nonetheless.

Alarmed by the detention of Oyub Titiev, Chairs of the Foreign Affairs committee, David McAllister (EPP, DE), and of the Human Rights Subcommittee, Pier Antonio Panzeri (S&D, IT), stated: "We are very concerned at the detention this week of Oyub Titiev, the prominent human rights defender and Director of the Memorial Human Rights Centre in the Chechen Republic and we call on the Russian authorities to immediately ensure his release and to provide him with all the necessary safeguards in the current proceedings."

The leader of a prominent Russian environmental group has been brutally beaten by unknown attackers, his deputy said Friday. The Environmental Watch on the North Caucasus for years has exposed illegal landfills, the destruction of landscapes and the contamination of waterways in Russia’s south. Some investigations have exposed land grabs by local officials who have built mansions in pristine forests and on the seacoast.