A page with the names of members of the Board of Trustees and Supervisory Boards was removed from the website of the Wildlife Fund (WWF) after the fund was declared a “foreign agent”. Taiga Info drew attention to this. Soon the page was returned back.
The Board of Trustees includes, in particular, TV presenter Nikolai Drozdov and President of the Center for Strategic Research Foundation Vladislav Onishchenko. The Supervisory Board included VTB Vice President Alexander Gogolev, TV presenter Vladimir Pozner, Director of the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University Mikhail Kalyakin, showman Anton Kamolov and former head of RIA Novosti Svetlana Mironyuk.
WWF was included in the list of "foreign agents" on March 10th. The Ministry of Justice explained this decision as follows: “Under the guise of activities to protect nature and the environment, the biological diversity of species, representatives of the fund tried to influence the decisions of the executive and legislative authorities of the Russian Federation, hindered the implementation of industrial and infrastructure projects.”
The Agency recalls that in 2014 Vladimir Putin personally congratulated the foundation on its 20th anniversary. “The active citizenship of your organization deserves the deepest recognition. It was WWF that was the first to use the mechanism of the Internet to promote a public legislative initiative… with your participation, laws were developed that toughen responsibility for the production and trafficking of animals listed in the Red Book,” the President said at the time.
The fund cooperated with large Russian companies, including Rosneft. The Kremlin has been participating in the Earth Hour campaign organized by the foundation for many years. In total, the company received 109.6 million rubles from Russian companies in 2021, and 4.4 million rubles came from the Presidential Grants Fund.