MOSCOW: Russia`s justice ministry said on Friday it had designated Andrei Kozyrev, the country`s first post-Soviet foreign minister who later became a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, as a `foreign agent`.

Kozyrev, who is 74 and lives in the United States, served as Russian foreign minister under then President Boris Yeltsin after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union at a time when a liberalising Russia maintained warm relations with Western countries.

Having moved to the US in 2010, Kozyrev becamean outspoken critic of Putin`s policies and later of Russia`s military campaign in Ukraine. Shortly after the outbreak of war in 2022, Kozyrev urged his former colleagues in the Russian foreign ministry to resign in protest.

The justice ministry in a statement accused him of distributing false information about Russian government policies and about the Russian military. It also noted his oppositiontowhatMoscow calls its `special military operation` in Ukraine and his alleged cooperation `with foreign platforms`.-Reuters