Britain, Russia trade spying charges
‘Britain spying on other nations too’:
UK: A senior British source has accused Russia of running an embassy
of spies in London while Britain itself is facing a series of spying
charges through its cultural and political proxies in other countries
especially the British Councils.
The security source told The Daily Telegraph that up to half of the
Russian embassy personnel could be spying on Britain.
Others have also accused Moscow of having some 40 operatives in
Britain at any one time who engage in industrial espionage, monitor
Russian tycoons based in Britain and track any possible thread that may
lead them to valuable intelligence on the US.
Oleg Gordievsky, former head of the Russian spy agency KGB who was
exposed as British double agent, said Russians are now operating more
agents in Britain than they were doing in mid 1980’s when the Russian
embassy reportedly housed 39 spies.
This is while, it has been Britain which has been proved to be spying
on other nations including Russia over the past years.
Back in January, Jonathan Powell, the chief of staff of former
British PM Tony Blair, admitted that Russian television was right in
reporting six years ago that London used a rock in Moscow for receiving
and transmitting information gathered by its spies.
At the time, the then Russian president Vladimir Putin introduced a
law to curb the British embassy’s funding of Russian non-governmental
organizations saying the funding was from security services to
‘interfere’ in Russia’s internal affairs.
Two years later in February 2008, the then presidential hopeful
Dimitry Medvedev said Moscow has been right to close down the British
Council’s outlets in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg on espionage
charges.
“It is known that state-financed structures like the British Council
conduct a mass of other activities that are not so widely publicized,”
Medvedev said at the time.
“Among other things, they are involved in gathering information and
conducting espionage activities,” he added.
PRESS TV
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