The Vienna Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) was founded in 1982 by a young Polish philosopher, Krzysztof Michalski, and two German colleagues in neutral Austria as a meeting place for scholars from Eastern Europe and Western countries, according to the official website.
The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation believes that since 2015, 'the so-called experts of IWM have been implementing a commercial program aimed at attempting to violate the territorial integrity of our country.' According to the department, the experts 'under the supervision of Western intelligence services, manipulating facts, actively work on creating the image of 'Russia as an aggressor' and 'call for arming Kyiv neo-Nazis, support criminal attacks on peaceful civilians, and advocate for the escalation of military confrontation in the Special Military Operation zone.'
Another reason for being included in the list is that among the institute's partners are American organizations Open Society Foundations, Atlantic Council of the United States, as well as the Austrian Central European University, whose activities have already been recognized as 'undesirable' in the territory of the Russian Federation.
The register of 'undesirable' organizations has been maintained in Russia since 2015. Foreign or international organizations can be recognized as 'undesirable' if, in the opinion of the authorities, they pose a 'threat to the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation, the country's defense capability, or state security.' Such organizations are prohibited from conducting activities in the country.
Participation in the activities of an 'undesirable organization' is punishable by administrative liability in the form of a fine from 5,000 to 15,000 rubles. In the case of a repeated violation within a year after the first fine for participation in the activities of an 'undesirable' organization, criminal liability ensues, ranging from fines of 300,000 to 500,000 rubles to imprisonment from one year to four years. Moreover, this also applies to participation in activities outside of Russia.