The Russian government has designated several German non-profit, research and activist groups as “undesirable,” a move that is widely seen as an attempt by the Kremlin to stifle criticism. The latest organizations to be tagged with the label by the Russian Ministry of Justice include the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think thank that is affiliated with Germany’s centre-left Social Democratic Party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The German Association for East European Studies was also blacklisted in Moscow on Monday, as was XZ GmbH, an outfit founded by Russian journalists living in exile in Germa…