MOSCOW, June 4 (RAPSI) – Russia's State Duma lawmakers Valery Rashkin and Sergei Obukhov have filed a reuest with the Prosecutor General’s Office seeking to label George Soros' Open Society Institute an "undesirable organization" in accordance with a law, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday.

A law under which foreign NGOs can be put on "undesirable organizations" list if they are believed to be a threat to the constitution, defense or security came into effect on June 3. These organizations will be prohibited from working and from circulating information materials in Russia, and their offices and branches will be closed.

“The anti-Russian activity of the Soros fund should be declared undesirable now, before it becomes as destructive as it was in Ukraine, Georgia and several other countries,” according to Russian lawmakers.

George Soros is a Hungarian-born US financier and the founder and chairman of charity foundations that have been accused of masterminding regime changes in several countries. 

Soros co-financed the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine in 2004 and Euromaidan in 2013. “I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now,” he told CNN in an interview in May 2014. 

Open Society Institute has a branch in Moscow and offices in St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Novosibirsk.

A decision to declare a foreign or international NGO an undesirable  organization can be made or reversed by the prosecutor general or his deputies, based on consultations with the Foreign Ministry. The Justice Ministry will compile and publish a list of non grata organizations.