The ministry announced the removal on its website, and Mediazona found the updated entry in the department's registry. Ponasenkov was added to the list on April 1, 2022, when the ministry cited "indirect foreign financing," saying the commentator had received 15 transfers from the Russian publishing house AST, which itself received money from abroad. The ministry also said he distributed material from media outlets designated as "foreign agents."
When Ponasenkov later tried to challenge the status, the Justice Ministry cited, among other things, more than 30 videos, most of them filmed in Italy. According to the ministry, in those videos the commentator used "allegories, metaphors and images" to describe the "superiority of European statehood" and the "unattainability of Western civilization" compared with Russia's political and social system.
Ponasenkov told the outlet Ostorozhno, Novosti that he had been contesting the status for the past several months. According to him, justice has prevailed, and his lawyers "bombarded the instances with documents." He said he had not left Russia, and added that every April and October he can travel to Italy to study art history.
At the same time, the Justice Ministry expanded the registry. The new entries are Ekaterina Mereminskaya, editor of The Insider's economics department; Muslim public figure Rinat (Abdulla) Mukhametov; Yelena Matveyeva, a supporter of Svetlana Ladya-Rus from the Novgorod region; the Telegram channel "Kanal Vizionera"; and the Facebook group "Perm-36," which posts news about political prisoners and is named after the museum of the history of political repression.