Mairbek Vachagaev, a political scientist, historian and publicist from Chechnya, who has been living in France for more than 20 years, is on the list of “foreign agents” of the Russian Ministry of Justice.
In 1998-1999, Vachagaev was the press secretary and general representative of the President of Ichkeria Aslan Maskhadov in Moscow.
In 1999, he was arrested in the center of the Russian capital on trumped-up charges of illegal possession of weapons and spent nine months in Butyrskaya prison.
He claimed that the gun had been planted on him. Amnesty International and Memorial recognized Vachagaev as a political prisoner.
In 2000, Mairbek Vachagaev was granted an amnesty and left for France, received French citizenship and refused a Russian passport.
Vachagaev has been engaged in journalistic and scientific activities all these years: he published many analytical articles on the situation in the North Caucasus, on events in Chechnya in the second half of the 90s, a monograph on the Union of the Mountaineers of the North Caucasus and the Mountainous Republic, edits the historical and political journal Caucasus Survey, published in the Netherlands.
In addition, Vachagaev hosts the podcast “Chronicle of the Caucasus with Vachagaev” on Radio Liberty.
“Vachagaev took part in the creation and distribution of messages and materials of foreign agents to an unlimited circle of people, carried out activities aimed at forming anti-Russian views,” the Russian Ministry of Justice believes.
“Russia awarded me the title of “foreign agent”! They don’t care that I am not a citizen of their country, but they still noted with their attention. It means that he did everything right and intends to continue in the same spirit,” Mairbek Vachagaev himself commented on the decision of the Russian authorities in his telegram channel.
The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov is also today recognized as a “foreign agent”.
