Moscow – Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his first comments on the discovery of alleged British spies in Moscow, on Wednesday linked the scandal to the foreign financing of nongovernmental organizations. Grassroots activists say such a connection is tangential and being used to smear their work.
“The situation is regrettable, as we have seen, when attempts are made to use secret services to work with nongovernmental organizations and when financing is carried out through secret services’ channels,” said Putin, speaking to journalists in St. Petersburg. “No one can then say the money does not smell. Beneficial aims cannot be attained with unsuitable means.”
The FSB, the Russian security service, announced Monday that it had found a British spying device hidden in a fake rock in a Moscow park and that a Russian, allegedly recruited by the British, was using it to upload information and receive instructions. Four people said to be British diplomats were videotaped downloading data from the device.
One of the alleged spies, Marc Doe, a second secretary in the British Embassy, was involved in the British government’s grant-making to Russian human-rights organizations.
The British government has refused to comment on the espionage charges but denied that it was doing anything illegal with NGOs, and insisted that its funding of Russian organizations was legal and open.
Russian authorities so far have presented no evidence that the alleged spy ring involved the recruitment or manipulation of human-rights activists. An unidentified Russian citizen has been arrested, but what kind of information the British may have been attempting to obtain or who the Russian is remain unknown.
But the fact that Doe worked with nongovernmental organizations has been seized on by Russian politicians – including legislators who passed a law bringing the groups under stricter government control. The lower house of parliament passed a resolution Wednesday condemning the involvement of foreign intelligence services with the private groups.
