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03 December 2019The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has signed a controversial law, which from now on allows the Russian authorities to treat natural persons as well, and no longer just legal ones as "foreign agents", the words with which they used to talk the spies. The new law will also affect figures such as bloggers: to be labeled as a foreign agent it is sufficient to receive money from abroad and spread material published by the media of organizations in turn included in the blacklist of foreign agents. The bill, presented last year to the State Duma, was part of Moscow's retaliatory initiatives for Washington's decision to include the Kremlin-Russian broadcaster 'Russia Today' on the list of foreign agents in the US. As a "mirror image", Moscow had branded 10 American newspapers as foreign agents. The new law also affects journalists who already work in these media, including Voice of America and Radio Liberty.