Former editor-in-chief Roman Badanin (the Ministry of Justice entered it into the register of foreign media agents) told about this in an interview with The New York Times.
On July 15, the publication temporarily suspended its work after the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia declared the publisher of "Project", the American company Project Media, Inc., "an undesirable organization."
The reason for the recognition of the organization as undesirable, as noted in the department, was its activity, "posing a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation."
Soon after that, Roman Badanin and his deputy Mikhail Rubin (the Ministry of Justice entered him into the register of foreign media agents) left Russia for the United States.
At the same time, Roman Badanin began to negotiate with representatives of Mikhail Khodorkovsky on financing the Project.
Earlier, RT found out that Project Media received $ 330,000 in grants in 2018 as "support for high-quality investigative journalism in Russia" from three foreign non-profit foundations, two of which are controlled directly by European and American authorities.
* "Project Media" (Project Media, Inc.) is an organization whose activities are recognized as undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation by the decision of the General Prosecutor's Office of 07/15/2021.