OREANDA-NEWS. The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) announced that it is ceasing to work in Russia to protect journalists «against the background of the Kremlin's campaign against independent journalism». This is stated in the OCCRP message posted on the organization's website on Wednesday, September 15.

«Now our work in Russia can bring more harm than good to local journalists. This does not mean that we will stop writing about large-scale corruption in this country. We just understand that the government, as usual, will punish it's own citizens for cooperating with us», explained Drew Sullivan, co-founder and editor-in-chief of OCCRP.

It's noted that over the past month, most of OCCRP's Russian partners were included in the list of «foreign agents» or «undesirable organizations». Those who have received this status must comply with strict requirements that interfere with work, many others were forced to close.

The report notes that Russian employees were offered to move to other countries to continue working at OCCRP. Those who refused it, the organization paid severance pay and helped with finding a new job. The OCCRP is known for high-profile corruption investigations — this project, among other things, participated in the work on the «Panama Archive». OCCRP was founded in 2007 in Sarajevo by Drew Sullivan and Paul Radu. In the summer of 2021, several Russian OCCRP journalists were included in the list of «foreign agents».