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The recently leaked documents of the British state organization Global Britain Fund became another prove of the UK’s arrogant interference in Russian domestic affairs.
The leaked documents represented a report of the British Embassy in Russia in the 2018-2019 fiscal year.
The reports unveil the main fields of the British Embassy activity; the Russian NGOs, which received a financial support from the Fund, including those recognized as foreign agents this year; the amounts of funds allocated by the British and the names of their receivers.
According to the documents, the British Embassy was involved in such activities like promotion of human rights-related actions, supporting the LGBT community, developing a network of independent journalists and bloggers, contact and promotion of representatives of the so-called new generation of public and political leaders and their introduction to British culture, etc. It established direct contacts with politicians, representatives of ministries, leading Russian companies, universities and human rights organizations.
Such activities of the British Embassy are a direct intervention to the Russian national affairs. The British did not even bother to disguise their real intentions, but only justified them with traditional claims about “rule of law”, “human rights” and even “strengthening of international cooperation”.
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The main directions listed in the report are:
- climate security section;
- consular section (rule of law);
- science and innovation;
- trade and investment;
- political section.
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For example, the intended outcome of the British activities in Political Section was to “understand and influence Russian security and defence thinking… to protect UK interests in the region”.
According to the documents, the only way the UK could defend its national interests is by supporting the opposition and promoting LGBT+. The goals in this section are described as follows:
” Internationally recognised human rights of vulnerable groups, including women and LGBT people are protected and promoted (!) in the Russian Federation. Independent media and investigative journalism are strengthened.”
” We will provide training in media ethics and investigative journalism, and work with leading (and vulnerable) bloggers and journalists. We will make an invitation to provide bids in support of our combating modern slavery objective. We will look to build on our existing work with women’s and LGBT groups,” the report reads.
Along with the embassy’s report, several applications of various Russian and foreign NGOs and media were leaked. Some of these Russian organizations were recognized as foreign agents in 2021 for carrying out political activities when being financed from abroad. Also the documents unveils the cooperation with organizations that have been repeatedly convicted of spreading fake information in Russia.
For example, the list includes “Mediazona”, “Memorial” agencies, the Ural House Foundation, the Mayak Foundation, Article19, the Law Zone, the Nadezhda Crisis Center, etc.
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The spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, drew attention to this report.
“The documents demonstrate the scale of financial and project activities, which, at quick glance, are simply shocking,” the diplomat said.
“Foreign agents? Come on, they are children, independent journalists and activists. We are looking forward for London’s reaction,” Zakharova added.
This is not for the first time that the revealed documents unveil the UK’s interference in Russian domestic policy.
In March 2021, the documents of the British Foreign Ministry revealed the British state cooperation with various Russian media agencies, as well as forming their network in the Russian Federation.
Moscow condemned the British programs of influence on the Russian-speaking media space.
Maria Zakharova commented on the leak of information about how the British authorities manage the work of the media and create a network of agents of influence in Russian-speaking social networks:
“According to these materials, by order of the Foreign Office, for several years, generously paid projects have been carried out in Russia and neighboring countries aimed at supporting Russian-speaking “independent media”, “ensuring media balance”, and in fact – fulfilling the tasks set from London to artificially separate the audience from Russian and local Russian-speaking sources of information. This is not about encouraging healthy competition of the media, but about aimed support only for those of them which promote British and Western agenda,” the embassy said in a statement.
The Russian Embassy in London later noted that the British side refused to comment on documents “that were not published by the British government in the prescribed manner.” Russian diplomats called such a reaction of British colleagues nonconstructive.
The terrifying Russian propaganda that is threatening the entire liberal West is nothing compared to Western policy at the top official level in Russia.
