Rybar, the famous Russian Telegram channel, posted the FSB slides on the British Foreign Office’s operation “to inflict a strategic defeat” on Russia and described them in English. “After the Skripal case and the leak of documents on the Integrity Initiative operation aimed at interfering in the politics of European states, the British intelligence services did not stop developing activities against Russia. Now there is an entire structure within MI6, the main task of which is to inflict a strategic defeat on the Russian Federation,” it reports. “This structure, under the direction of the British Foreign Office, works in several directions at once: lobbying for economic initiatives in support of so-called Ukraine, financing anti-Russian NGOs, and co-operation with pro-government media.”
The slides, in fact, lay out the whole structure of the operation, which is not limited to Russia. It all comes, Rybar says, under the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate (EECAD) of the Foreign Office, which was built into the structure of MI6 and significantly expanded in 2022. The Directorate is responsible for operations under the names of, for example, “Programme to Combat Disinformation and Media Development,” where BBC, Reuters and Bellingcat are the main actors.
“On the basis of the Directorate there are, firstly, structures whose work is aimed at undermining the Russian Federation and supporting so-called Ukraine, and, secondly, departments supervising former Soviet republics from Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Belarus and Moldova,” Rybar says. “The central figures in this system are Philip Barton, U.K. Deputy Foreign Secretary, Tim Barrow, National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, Christopher Joyce, Deputy Head of Russia Policy, and James Beer and Mark Diamond, heads of the HMG Russia Unit.”
And under the leadership of EECAD there is another rather interesting department—the Information Threats and Influence Directorate (ITID), Rybar reports further. “In fact, this department is a kind of propaganda ministry, whose tasks include continuing the hybrid war with Russia.”
“The documents state that it was Russia’s special operation in Ukraine that catalyzed the creation of ITID and through this crisis, its staff is studying how all major state actors are using manipulation and interference to cause harm, as well as developing countermeasures.
“The head of ITID is Jonny Hall, who was previously the Prime Minister’s private secretary for foreign affairs. Hall is working on ‘innovative approaches’ to maintain accurate information so that ‘it can be reliably delivered to citizens.’ In other words: he is developing mechanisms that will allow the British services to pass on for dissemination only the information that needs to be disseminated, rather than ensuring that only truthful data is accessible.
“ITID has at least one more interesting character in its structure—Andy Price, head of the Threat Mitigation Unit. Price is a specialist in propaganda and media manipulation of the public. He was exposed as a key player in the scandalous MI6 project known as the Integrity Initiative.
“The aim of the project was to interfere in the internal affairs of European countries and to launch an information war against the Russian Federation. It was founded in 2015 and was fully funded by the British government. Also associated with the project are financier William Browder, Vladimir Ashurkov—an associate of Alexei Navalny and scientist Igor Sutyagin, convicted in 2004 for espionage. Documents leaked online claimed the project received grants from the U.S. State Department, NATO and Facebook.
“It is clear that the conflict in Ukraine has allowed the Western propaganda machine to not only make huge amounts of money from the military industry, but has also allowed multiple entities to not just “play out a possible crisis scenario” but to study it in the field. In fact, the British authorities have also created an instrument for mobilizing the right sentiments in the countries of interest and interfering in their affairs.”
