Moscow sanctions British ‘Russia experts’

The Russian Foreign Ministry has blacklisted 32 analysts, authors and consultants whose work, it claimed, has helped drive the UK into “further harsh systemic confrontation with Russia.”

The 32 individuals were blacklisted on Monday and are barred from entering Russia, the ministry announced in a statement. The sanctioned individuals work for nine British think tanks and consulting firms, including Chatham House and the Institute for Statecraft. Other organizations named include Forward Strategy Limited and the Media Diversity Institute.

“Through publicly available media and the Internet, such organizations disseminate disinformation that discredits the Russian state, vainly trying to create conditions for destabilizing the domestic political situation in our country,” the ministry stated.

“In addition, as part of fulfilling the orders of their London masters, who aim to politically and economically isolate Moscow in the international arena, such ‘think tanks’ carry out destructive activity in states friendly to Russia, undermining the stability and well-being of the peoples inhabiting them,” the ministry continued.

Formerly known as the The Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House has advised the British government for more than 100 years. Since the Ukraine conflict began in 2022, Chatham House has lobbied for increased Western military aid to Kiev and called on the UK to not rule out the involvement of British troops in the conflict. Chatham House was declared an ‘undesirable’ organization by Russia in 2022.

The Institute for Statecraft is funded by NATO, the British Defense Ministry, and the Pentagon. Under a sub-organization called the Integrity Initiative, it ran a Europe-wide anti-Russia influence campaign from 2017 onwards, planting anti-Kremlin influencers in government, academia, media and the military.

Forward Strategy Limited has served as a middleman between the British government and a range of Russian and Belarusian opposition figures, encouraging London to fund these politicians and back anti-Moscow separatist Akhmed Zakaev in Chechnya. Zakaev is wanted in Russia for terrorism, and has been living in exile in London since 2002.

These organizations’ “expert assessments…often connected with interference in the internal affairs of foreign states, are widely used in the implementation of the anti-Russian course of the ‘collective West’,” the ministry said.

Russia has sanctioned hundreds of British nationals since the conflict began, including cabinet members, law enforcement officials, and defense industry figures.

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