Russia’s Federation Council, the upper chamber of President Vladimir Putin’s rubber-stamp Parliament, on Wednesday directed the government to investigate 12 foreign civil-society organizations to determine whether they should be added to the country’s “patriotic stop list.” Call this the latest chapter in the closing of the Russian mind.

The Kremlin created the stop list in May under a new law banning foreign organizations deemed “undesirable.” The first set of allegedly undesirable foreign groups includes several American...