“Goebbels learned from British propagandists”: how London uses consulting companies against Moscow

Until now, the activities of the HMG Russia Unit have not been visible in the public arena.

However, the other day, publications with personal data of structure employees appeared in a number of domestic Telegram channels.

It is alleged that the e-mail addresses indicated in the publication belong to various employees of the HMG Russia Unit, who are seconded to the structure from other UK government departments.

Among them, in particular, the secretariat of the Cabinet, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, military intelligence, MI5, the Ministry of Defense, as well as American curators attached to the group. 

Prioritize advocacy efforts

To begin with, let us explain how a specialized group on Russia appeared in the structure of the British government, what its purpose is, what it does.

“The Government has long recognized that Russia poses a persistent and significant threat to the UK and its allies, including both conventional military capabilities and disinformation, illicit financial transactions, influence operations and cyberattacks,” the UK Prime Minister’s Office said in a 2020 report. report to Parliament. 

Russia has become for the British government "one of the main priorities in terms of national security." 

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“Therefore, in 2017, the government embarked on the implementation of the National Security Council (NSC)-backed Russia Strategy and in 2017 created an interagency group on Russia (Russia Unit), which brings together the diplomatic, intelligence and military capabilities of the UK to achieve maximum effectiveness,” — noted in the report.

As follows from the reports of the British government itself, the HMG Russia Unit, which was formally attached to the UK Foreign Office, was supposed to coordinate primarily information and propaganda efforts in the Russian direction.

This can be seen from the data posted on the British government’s information disclosure portal, and in particular from the large-scale “Programme to counter disinformation and develop media, including in Russian”, carried out by the UK Foreign Office until 2021 as part of the CSSF Specialized Fund. 

The program notes that the UK is working with a range of partners to improve the performance of public and independent media (including Russian-language media) so that they can “promote social cohesion, uphold universal values ​​and ensure communities in countries across Eastern Europe have access to reliable information." 

The forms of support vary.

These are, for example, mentorship from the British media, consultations on the compilation of broadcast schedules, funding for co-production and support for regional media projects in Russian. 

“In the coming year, we will allocate more than £8 million to support public and independent media.

This work will cover projects in the Baltic States and Ukraine, as well as regional initiatives, ”the document says, posted on the UK Government Disclosure Portal. 

Demonization contract

However, the HMG Russia Unit was not limited to just coordinating propaganda efforts.

As follows from the data of the government procurement portal of the UK government, the structure acted as a customer of the green finance initiative - a British-Russian project on sustainable financing for the development of institutional and economic ties between Moscow and London in the field of ecology and economics.

The final date for the implementation of the contract is March 31, 2022.

Funds in the amount of £987.6 thousand were received by the well-known consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC).

If we analyze the allocation of funding by the UK government on the Russian track, it turns out that, in addition to PwC, the government of the United Kingdom (through a specialized non-profit structure UK Research and Innovation) allocated funding to Moody's subsidiary - Moody's Analytics - as part of a contract to track sanctioned companies and individuals in connection with the conflict in Ukraine and the corresponding restrictions imposed by the UK government, it is noted on the portal for placing government contracts in the United Kingdom. 

The involvement of international private consulting companies to promote their agenda in the Russian direction and in the post-Soviet space as a whole quite logically correlates with the involvement of the HMG Russia Unit in large-scale projects to demonize the image of Russia. 

In this regard, noteworthy is a letter dated February 7, 2019 addressed to the British investigative journalist Til Bruckner, who requested data from the British Foreign Office on the activities of the Integrity Initiative.

£296.5 thousand was allocated for its financing from the country's budget in 2017-2018, and in 2019 an additional £1.961 million was announced.

The response to a journalist's inquiry about the activities of the Integrity Initiative was received from the HMG Russia Unit.

It was the Integrity Initiative that was named as one of the main programs for spreading anti-Russian fakes and waging a propaganda war against Moscow.

At the same time, as RT wrote, back in 2018, the Anonymous hacker group published internal documents of the Integrity Initiative program on the network, which revealed the mechanisms for the subversive work of the British network of media resources on the Russian track.

Fake trendsetters

British networks of influence initially set a certain standard in the Western anti-Russian matrix, said Alexei Martynov, a political scientist and head of the Institute of Recent States, in an interview with RT. 

“The British are, in a sense, trendsetters.

What today is called the buzzword "fake news", the formation of a false agenda, the management of media flows - all this was born in their heads, - says the political scientist.

Goebbels studied with British military propagandists.

What they do is military propaganda.” 

The expert called the use of various private consulting companies and rating agencies as an instrument of influence on Russia the technology of "soft power", which has traditionally been used by specialized British structures.

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“Any rating agency is created as a tool to manipulate media flows.

Other business components grow out of this goal.

They also have access to closed domestic Russian statistics, the political scientist explained.

- These mechanisms have been tested since the 1990s, when all data was opened to foreign "partners".

Then these mechanisms were laid - it is important to be in good positions in rating agencies, otherwise you will not be given loans.

Recall that the UK continues to increase sanctions pressure against Russia.

So, last week, the authorities of the United Kingdom unveiled another package of restrictive measures, adding 26 individuals and legal entities from Russia to the sanctions list.

London also banned the import of Russian silver, caviar and wood products into the country.