Not all Russian NGOs with foreign funds controlled by Justice Ministry – ministry official

(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 15, 2013) The information on the multi-billion funding of non-governmental organizations (NGO) in Russia coming from abroad voiced by the president only partially refers to the NGOs whose activities are controlled by the Justice Ministry.

“Of course, not all NGOs that are reported by banks to receive such funding according to the NGO legal status belong to, let’s say, civil society and the types of NGOs registered and controlled by the Justice Ministry,” … [the] deputy director of the Justice Ministry department on NGOs, said, responding to a remark made by Pavel Chikov, a member of the Human Rights Council, who asked her to comment on the assumption that the 28 billion rubles received by NGOs operating in Russia from abroad in the past four months is overestimated.

“Clearly, we are talking about information received from Rosfinmonitoring, but the main idea is that part of this funding goes to NGOs that are not controlled by the Justice Ministry. That is, we are talking about some other structures,” Chikov said.

On April 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with the television and radio company ARD that 654 NGOs receiving funding from abroad are operating in Russia.

“You know how much money has gone into these organizations’ accounts over the four months since the adoption of the relevant law? You can’t imagine, and I didn’t know: it’s 28.3 billion rubles; it’s almost $1 billion. A total of 855 million rubles was received through diplomatic offices,” Putin said.

Putin said these are NGOs that engage in internal political activities. “Shouldn’t our society know who gets money and for what?” he said.