Russia: Moscow no longer wants a commission of inquiry into the Russian military

Russian officials on Thursday declared “undesirable,” resulting in its de facto ban, the investigative body the Conflict Investigation Committee (CIT), renowned for its investigations into the activities of the Russian military around the world. The Russian General Prosecutor’s Office said the decision was taken “in view of the CIT’s participation in anti-Russian campaigns launched from abroad and aimed at promoting protests and subversive ideas”. “The main purpose of this group of pseudo-journalists was to collect and publish information about the Russian armed forces, especially personal information of Russian soldiers that was later used to discredit them,” the prosecutor’s office said.

The CIT, founded in Russia, emerged in 2014 with the release of investigations into Russian forces involved in the conflict in Ukraine. For his investigations, he finds and verifies information and images published in free access on the Internet. Apart from Ukraine, he mentions the operations of Russian forces in Libya, Syria and the Central African Republic.

In Russia, collaborators of the “undesirable” organization are subject to strict legal measures. CIT creator Ruslan Leviv, who lives in the US and is being prosecuted in Russia for spreading “disinformation” about the Russian military, said on Thursday that all of his staff were out of the country and therefore “more or less safe”. But during a program broadcast on the YouTube channel of journalist Alexander Plyuchev, he insisted that the ban posed “serious risks” for CIT volunteers on Russian territory. “Part of (our volunteers) are in Russia, but they are anonymous, we don’t have a database where we can hack their names, and we are trying to take all measures for their safety,” he assured.

Since the Kremlin launched an offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities have relentlessly cracked down on those who dare to denounce the conflict.

(AFP)