Newly-leaked internal documents of the British Foreign Office, marked "Official-Sensitive FCDO-only" have been published by the Underside portal. They claim to offer an insight into the British government’s multi-pronged information war targeting Russia.
The documents reveal:
• The British propaganda machine swung into action after Downig Street’s National Security Council (NSC) “recognized the presence of a sustained and significant threat from Russia to the UK and its allies” in 2020.
• The London-based Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate (EECAD) oversaw the NSC’s global anti-Russian operation launched in 2016. Codenamed the Counter Disinformation & Media Development Program (CDMD), its subversive work was geared to promote regime change in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
• Reuters, the BBC, Bellingcat, Meduza* and the Pussy Riot-founded Mediazona*, as well as YouTubers in Russia and Central Asia were paid to promote pro-NATO narratives.
• All covert EECAD operations are concentrated in the HMG Russia Unit. Set up in 2017 and attached to the Foreign Office, it was tasked with coordinating propaganda campaigns against Russia. All its employees are active MI6 officers.
• The unit implemented large-scale projects to demonize Russia, including the fabricated “Skripal poisoning case."
• There is information that Russia Unit oversees operations of the 72nd Psychological and Information Warfare Center – a unit of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces.
• It also reportedly provides information support for Ukraine's Nazi Azov** Battalion.
• The same unit is allegedly behind staged chemical attacks in Syria and the Ukrainian ‘Bucha massacre’ provocation.
EECAD’s Subversive Anti-Russia Activity During NATO’s Proxy War in Ukraine
After the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, departments were created within EECAD to organize subversive activities against Russia. EECAD departments oversee NGO operations to boost financial assistance to Ukraine, coordinate subversive activities and monitor military actions in real time.
A special Ukraine Campaign Unit set up in February 2023 supports political-military engagement in Ukraine. Special EECAD sections run subversive activities in former Soviet republics in Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Belarus and Moldova.
Senior civil servants including prime ministerial national security advisor Tim Barrow, British Foreign Office permanent undersecretary Philip Barton, Deputy Head of Russia Policy Christopher Joyce, and James Beer and Mark Diamond, heads of the HMG Russia Unit, are all central figures in this extensive network.
*Recognized as foreign agents in Russia.
**Banned in Russia for terrorism and extremism.