A Moscow court has upheld a decision to include the pollster Levada Center in the list of NGO foreign agents.
Levada Center's inclusion in the list of so-called foreign agents first became known on Sep. 5. Shortly thereafter, the center sent an appeal to Russian Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov, arguing that the decision was illegal.
Read about why the Kremlin hates Levada Center.
Moscow's Tverskoy court fined the organization 300,000 rubles ($4,600) for not voluntarily including itself in the list of foreign agents. That decision has been appealed and has not yet taken effect.
Levada Center is a pollster network of 67 regional partners and has ties to the Center for Public Opinion Research in the Commonwealth of Independent States and Baltic countries. Its findings are regularly reported in both Russian and foreign publications.
The organization's staff includes experts in sociology, political science, economics, psychology, marketing research, mass surveys and data processing. Some of its leading personnel have had training in the U.S. and Europe.
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