Russia's Justice Ministry added 10 new organizations to its register of 'undesirable organizations,' according to data on the ministry's website updated July 24. The Prosecutor General's Office made the decisions to ban them on July 13 and 16, independent media including Mediazona noted.
Among the new entries is the German Robert Bosch Stiftung, a foundation established by the founder of the Bosch engineering group, Robert Bosch. According to The Insider, the foundation holds 94% of the group's shares and finances its work through dividends. The Bosch group itself was not included in the register. The foundation engages in philanthropy, including running a hospital in Stuttgart, funding scholarships, and supporting the Robert Bosch Academy think tank. Participants in its programs, according to the academy's website, have included political scientist Yekaterina Shulman, editor-in-chief of the journal 'Russia in Global Affairs' Fyodor Lukyanov, and former Vedomosti editor Maxim Trudolyubov.
As The Insider writes, one area of the foundation's work was researching Russian influence and disinformation operations. Ahead of the early Bundestag elections in February 2025, the foundation supported an international team of researchers monitoring Russian campaigns on social media. Based on this data, Reuters published two articles — one on the work of Russia-linked networks Storm-1516, Doppelgänger, and 'Matryoshka,' which spread fake terrorist warnings and messages against candidate for chancellor Friedrich Merz; and another on the Geist network of more than 700 fake accounts that began posting pro-Russian content a week before the vote.
The register also includes the German NGO Geradeaus e.V., the legal entity of the StraightForward foundation, which supports Russian-language nonfiction authors abroad. The foundation's team includes former deputy editor-in-chief of Meduza Alexander Gorbachev, former editor-in-chief of the Individuum publishing house Felix Sandalov, and Alexei Dokuchaev (Popcorn Books). As The Insider notes, with StraightForward's support, books were created about the Wagner private military company and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the removal of Ukrainian children, political prisoners, and war crimes in Ukraine. The foundation helps authors find foreign publishers and translate manuscripts into other languages.
Other 'undesirable' organizations include the Reforum Space platform in Paris (linked to the Free Russia Foundation), the International Drug Policy Consortium, the Eastern European Network for Citizenship Education (EENCE), the Platform of Anti-War Initiatives, the U.S.-based Nova Ukraine and the Norwegian Ukrainian Freedom Convoys (which collect aid for Ukraine), the association of anti-war Russians in Norway SmåRådina, and Liberty Forward, which helps students from Russia in the United States. As of July 24, the register listed 382 organizations — their activities are banned in Russia, and cooperation with them is punishable by law.