Fake Rocks and Democracy Support in Russia

Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff  has admitted that Russia’s espionarge allegations in the 2006 Fake Rock Affair were true.  Details are here.

What readers of this blog may find particularly interesting are the comments by Tony Brenton, the British Ambassador at the time, speaking on The Radio 4 Today programme this morning. He makes the point that one of the embassy officials implicated in the incident was also responsible for support for Russian NGOs including human rights organizations and the result was that the Putin Regime used this as pretext to attack foreign supported organizations.

I suspect NGO liaison looks like an ideal cover for an intelligence officer but it also means that if your intelligence activities are compromised so are all your contacts.

I’ve commented before that dealing with undesirable foreign PD is a neglected topic – could be an interesting paper there.