Russian NGOs receive over RUB 28bn from abroad

Over 28 billion roubles have been transferred from abroad in funding for NGOs in Russia as has been borne out by documents, a spokesperson for the Prosecutor General’s Office, Marina Gridneva, said. “During preparations for the inspections, we were informed that 654 NGOs had received over 28.3 billion roubles from abroad since the enactment of the law on NGOs that act as foreign agents, that is, from November 21, 2012 to March 26, 2013,” Gridneva told ITAR-TASS. “None of these NGOs was included in the register of non-profit organisations acting as foreign agents. Based on that the decision was made to carry out inspections in these organisations which receive foreign funding across Russia,” she said. Gridneva stressed that there are no doubts about the correctness of the conclusions made by the authorised bodies with regard to the amount of foreign funding to NGOs. “These figures are borne out by documents,” she added. “Even the statements made by experts from NGOs themselves indicate that NGOs received at least 19 billion roubles from abroad in 2011,” Gridneva said.