MSF’s global headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo: EPA / MARTIAL TREZZINI

International medical relief organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), known in English as Doctors Without Borders, announced in a statement on Monday that it had closed down its operations in Russia following a decision by the country’s Justice Ministry in August to deem it a so-called “foreign agent”.

“It is with a heavy heart that we have to close our activities in Russia,” the MSF statement said. “Our organisation’s work is guided by the principles of independence, impartiality, and neutrality, and medical ethics.”

MSF has been active in Russia since 1992, and most recently had operations in the cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Belgorod and Rostov-on-Don, as well as in the Kemerovo, Arkhangelsk and Ivanovo regions, and the North Caucasus republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan. Its programmes focused on providing unhoused people with medical care and helping to reduce Russia’s once soaring numbers of drug-resistant tuberculosis cases.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, MSF has also provided over 52,000 refugees and displaced people with humanitarian aid, while a further 15,400 people have received free medical, mental health and psychosocial support, the organisation said.

“We are very sad to conclude our programmes in the country as many people in need of medical and humanitarian assistance will now be left without the support we could have provided to them,” MSF’s Russia operations manager Norman Sitali said, stressing that MSF would still like to work in Russia again “if and when possible”.