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Daily Telegraph: Being British makes the Kremlin see red

EXTRACT: Generally, anti-Western sentiment is on the rise and the campaign against companies such as BP and Shell has much to do with the government’s desire to reclaim control of foreign-owned oil fields.

By Adrian Blomfield
Last Updated: 3:08am BST 04/06/2007

A campaign of intimidation is threatening the future of Britain’s cultural wing in Russia. The British Council has been accused by Russian authorities of a range of crimes from tax irregularities to turning young people into “British agents of influence”.

Either by coincidence or design, the British Council’s woes have grown of late, mirroring a rapid deterioration in Anglo-Russian relations. Since 2004, the council’s 10 Russian outlets have been subjected to raids by tax authorities.

Last summer, the organisation was ordered to close its new office in St Petersburg, accused of not equipping it with fire extinguishers — although at least one was visible in press photographs of the official opening ceremony.

Late last month the accusations took a conspiratorial turn after the deputy governor of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk accused the council’s regional office of enticing bright students to British universities on academic scholarships. According to officials, the British Council is deliberately plundering the region’s best specialists to deprive it of up-and-coming talent.

The council maintains that only seven postgraduates have been offered one-year masters scholarships since 1994 – and all but one are known to have returned.

In the face of a regional media campaign suggesting that they are recruiting young Russians as spies, council officials are baffled.

Funded by, but independent of, the Foreign Office, the organisation prides itself on being non-political.

The council’s problems come at a time when British interests in Russia are under assault, from the BBC’s Russia service to British energy companies and the British ambassador, Anthony Brenton, who was subject to an intimidation campaign by pro-Kremlin youths.

Generally, anti-Western sentiment is on the rise and the campaign against companies such as BP and Shell has much to do with the government’s desire to reclaim control of foreign-owned oil fields.

Yet Britain, although seen as less influential than some EU countries, retains a singular capacity to annoy.

London has been accused of providing safe haven to the Kremlin’s greatest enemies – Boris Berezovsky, a once powerful oligarch who became President Vladimir Putin’s biggest rival, and Akhmad Zakayev, the Chechen rebel envoy.

British Council officials concede their frustration, but are keen to play down a political element to their problems. “Clearly we are disappointed if agreements we made in good faith with our partners are being called into question,” said James Kennedy, the British Council’s director in Russia.

“We are keen to resolve these problems as soon as possible.”

Privately, however, diplomats admit that just the presence of the word “British” in the council’s title could be enough to cause problems – especially since the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/04/wrussia04.xml

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