Russia targets teachers who cooperated with the British Council

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) spy work accused U.K. intelligence connected Thursday of utilizing the British Council arsenic screen to undermine the state and said it had identified teachers astatine starring universities who cooperated with the London-based charity.

With the war successful Ukraine intensifying much than 3 years since President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into the state and amid a tentative rapprochement betwixt Moscow and Washington, Britain is present considered “enemy fig one” by Russian officials.

The British Council, which calls itself “the U.K.’s planetary enactment for taste relations and acquisition opportunities,” said successful 2018 that it had been told to cease operations successful Russia.

The British Council did not instantly respond to a petition for remark extracurricular accustomed London concern hours connected the Russian accusations. British quality could not beryllium reached for contiguous comment.

The disparate and divided Russian opposition, which is present mostly abroad, accuses Putin of gathering an progressively repressive and autocratic authorities successful Russia arsenic Moscow faces disconnected against the West implicit Ukraine.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB and 1 of the astir almighty organizations successful Russia, said that it had identified teaching unit from starring universities successful 4 Russian regions who had cooperated with the British Council.

The FSB said the British Council was utilized by British quality for attempts to erase Russian individuality and make a planetary web of agents of influence.

“During the investigation, representatives of the teaching unit of starring Russian universities who collaborated with the British broadside to the detriment of the information of the Russian Federation were identified,” the FSB said.

The FSB, which said that 15 Russian citizens had been officially warned implicit their practice with the British Council, implored allies to prohibition the British Council and cautioned citizens to person nary interaction with it.

The British Council, primitively called the British Committee for Relations with Other Countries, was founded successful 1934 to dispersed British “soft power” amid the emergence of fascism and communism, according to an authoritative past connected its website.