(Reuters) – Russia’s justice ministry has started investigating a museum dedicated to the late president Boris Yeltsin for possible activity as a “foreign agent”, state-owned agency RIA reported on Thursday.
The Yeltsin Centre in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg explores the life, work and legacy of Yeltsin, who served as post-Soviet Russia’s first president from 1991 to 1999 and designated Vladimir Putin as his chosen successor.
The museum’s steering committee includes Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and senior Kremlin officials Anton Vaino and Alexei Gromov, according to the institution’s website.
The term “foreign agent” has connotations of spying and has been widely used by Russian authorities against journalists, opposition figures and others whom it deems to be conducting anti-state activity with backing from abroad.
(Reporting by Felix Light and Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Gareth Jones)
