Rocking the Relationship

Last night, RTR, Russia's official state TV station identified four members of the British Embassy staff whom it — and the secret police, the FSB — claimed are spying inside Russia.

Watching the FSB secret footage of the alleged spies was as thrilling as a new James Bond saga movie. The British spying equipment was allegedly concealed in a simple Russian stone and used for two way communications with still unidentified Russian traitors. And the Brit diplomat, pretending to be relieving himself in a Russian public park as an excuse to pick up the malfunctioning stone, was about as convincing a menace as Bond seducing yet another Russian female agent.

The program also charged that the alleged diplomatic spies made financial transfers to several Russian non-governmental organizations (NGOs), including the Moscow Helsinki Human Rights group that has operated since 1976.

The British Foreign Office expressed concern and surprise at the allegations, and denied any impropriety. In a press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Tony Blair declined to answer specific questions about the flap, while other officials pointed out that the British government openly and routinely supports certain NGOS within Russia. However, Russian authorities are standing by their story. "We caught them red-handed communicating with agents and financing a number of NGOs," said FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko. The entire incident is baffling. It's no secret that even friendly countries spy upon each other. But casting NGOs in an enemy role does seem novel. Earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new restrictive law placing NGOs in Russia, either foreign or domestic, under tight state controls.

The legislation caused much criticism in the West. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that such moves cast doubt on Russia's stature as this year G-8 chair — or on Russia belonging to G-8 at all.

Yet just as Putin leaned heavily on the unsupervised NGOs, he launched the Public Chamber — a new grand body, composed of prominent Russian scientists, publishers, sportsmen, artists, medics, etc. to oppose the state bureaucracy and promote civic society — under Putin's patronage and the Kremlin's proper supervision, of course. Speaking on the RTR-FSB spy feature last night, FSB press-secretary Diana Shemyakina stated that just 92 of several thousands NGOs that work in Russia today are formally registered with the Ministry of Justice. Most of them, Shemyakina emphasized, are launched and financed by governmental or public organizations of the US and its NATO allies.

In a classic touch of absurdity, the FSB feature on Western spying and using NGOs to hurt Russia came immediately after the clip announcing the release of The First Circle TV serial, based on the famous novel by Alexander Solzhenitsyn on Soviet labor camps, packed with innocent people, arrested as alleged foreign spies. The Cold War may be over, but you'd hardly know from watching Russian TV.