The Working Group on Syria Propaganda and Media briefing note on the Integrity Initiative:
http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-...initiative Click on this link for all the linked info. The below of just for the record.
[quote]
Briefing note on the Integrity Initiative
Briefing note on the Integrity Initiative
Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason, Piers Robinson
Briefing note on the Integrity Initiative
Paul McKeigue, David Miller, Jake Mason, Piers Robinson
Working Group on Syria Propaganda and Media, 21 December 2018
1 Summary
2 Release of documents relating to the Integrity Initiative
3 Sources of funding for the Integrity Initiative
3.1 FCO-led Russian Language Programme
3.2 Co-funding
4 The offices and team of the Integrity Initiative
4.1 Offices and team
4.2 UK Cluster
5 Relationships of the Integrity Initiative to other organizations
5.1 Partner organizations listed on the Integrity Initiative website
5.2 Other organizations listed as associated with the Integrity Initiative
6 Role of the FCO and the Ministry of Defence in the Integrity Initiative
6.1 FCO staff associated with the Integrity Initiative
6.2 Ministry of Defence and military personnel named in documents
7 Operations in UK politics and media
7.1 UK journalists named in documents
7.2 Attempt to influence the House of Commons Defence Committee
7.3 Twitter account
8 Links of the Integrity Initiative with extremism in the Baltic States and Ukraine
8.1 Holocaust revisionism
8.2 Neo-Nazism
9 Promotion of hate campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church in the Balkans
10 Activities of the Integrity Initiative in the US
11 History of the Institute for Statecraft
11.1 Founding
11.2 Youth work
11.3 EU lobbying
12 Christopher Nigel Donnelly
12.1 Military intelligence role
13 Daniel Lafayeedney
13.1 High Court case in 2006
14 Other companies directed by Donnelly and Lafayeedney
14.1 Pluscarden Investments LLP (2005-2010)
14.2 ISG Corporate LLP and ISG Corporate Limited (2009 to present)
14.3 Council on Foreign Relations LLP (2010 to present)
14.4 Techfin London Limited (2014-2016)
15 St Antony's College Oxford and the Pluscarden Programme for the Study of Global Terrorism and Intelligence
16 Charities with Donnelly and Lafayeedney as trustees
16.1 Forward Thinking
16.2 Active Change Foundation
17 Charitable status of the Institute of Statecraft
17.1 Publicly declared charitable purposes and privately stated objectives
17.2 Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator's criteria for making a complaint:
Acknowledgements
Appendix list of documents released up to 20 December 2018
First tranche released 5 November 2018
Second tranche of documents released 29 November 2018
Third tranche released 13 December 2018
This is work in progress: we welcome corrections, comments and further information. We can be contacted at
piers.robinson@sheffield.ac.uk. Comments can be posted at Tim Hayward's blog
1 Summary
The Integrity Initiative now accounts for most of the budget of a Scottish-registered charity named the Institute for Statecraft founded by Daniel Lafayeedney and Chris Donnelly in 2006. Most of the overt funding for this programme about £2.6 million / year comes from the Conflict Security and Stability Fund's Russian Language Programme, now merged with a secret Counter Disinformation and Media Campaign. Office space in central London and most of the staff salaries, appear to be provided as a covert benefit in kind.
A close examination of past and present posts held by individuals associated with the Integrity Initiative indicates that specialists in military intelligence and other senior military personnel with responsibility for StratCom (strategic communication) operations are closely involved in the programme.
The activities of the Integrity Initiative include:
setting up covert networks clusters' of journalists, academics and military/foreign service StratCom practitioners in each country including the UK: The programme has begun to create a critical mass of individuals from across society (think tanks, academia, politics, the media, government and the military) whose work is proving to be mutually reinforcing.
covert manipulation of the public sphere, including campaigns to smear and suppress dissenters and block their appointment to public office. The silencing of pro-Kremlin voices on Serbian TV is listed as an achievement.
overt attacks on British politicians, academics and other critics of UK government policies, most notably on the Leader of the Opposition and his staff.
in the Baltic states and Ukraine, working closely with organizations and governments that foment hatred of ethnic Russian minorities and encourage Holocaust revisionism.
promotion of a hate campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church in the Balkans.
These activities:
are not the charitable purposes set out in the Institute of Statecraft's constitution, and are not charitable purposes in general.
violate the accepted principle that government funding may not be used for partisan political purposes.
indicate that the Government has misled the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee about the scope of the Russian Language Programme of the Conflict Security and Stability Fund.
indicate that military units specialized for information warfare are now participating in covert manipulation of political discourse at home, subverting parliamentary government.
have contributed to narrowing the range of public discourse so as to marginalize reality-based evaluation of policy options for relations with Russia and evidence-based assessment of events in which Russian involvement is alleged.
There are serious concerns about the transparency of the Institute for Statecraft (formerly the Institute of Statecraft and Governance):
Its registered corporate address is a derelict building in rural Scotland which is being demolished
In a High Court judgement in 2006 against Lafayeedney, the judge commented adversely on his probity and his business methods.
The filed accounts show unexplained defects' for the year ending 23 November 2010. After the Board had approved accounts showing income of £158,470, Lafayeedney filed accounts for a dormant company. The accounts were amended more than a year later by Donnelly who filed the accounts that the Board had approved.
Donnelly and Lafayeedney have on at least two occasions set up Scottish Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) with names that could easily be confused with existing charities or foundations. Thus in 2009 they set up ISG Corporate LLP at a time when the acronym ISG was used for the Institute of Statecraft and Governance by a charity with which it was in partnership, and in 2010 they set up Council on Foreign Relations as an LLP, with a name that is identical to that of a respected US foreign policy think tank.
Scottish Limited Partnerships and LLPs are notorious as a vehicle for non-transparent financial transfers.
2 Release of documents relating to the Integrity Initiative
A first tranche of documents relating to the Integrity Institute were released on 5 November 2018. The documents lay unnoticed for two weeks until 23 November, when a story on RT brought them to attention. A second tranche of documents was released on 29 November and a third tranche on December 13. The documents were represented as the result of a hack though it is possible that this disguises a leak by an insider. All documents are in PDF format with no metadata such as timestamps or authors preserved.
In response to the first tranche, the Integrity Institute confirmed that a leak of documents occurred, and described the documents as follows:
Although it is clear that much of the material was indeed on the Integrity Initiative or Institute systems, much of it is dated and was never used. In particular, many of the names published were on an internal list of experts in this field who had been considered as potential invitees to future cooperation. In the event, many were never contacted by the Integrity Initiative and did not contribute to it.
The Integrity Initiative has not asserted that any of the released documents were faked or tampered with. There are no internal signs that the documents have been tampered with although they contain minor mistakes such as misspelt names.
A full list of all documents released so far, with annotations, is given in the Appendix.
3 Sources of funding for the Integrity Initiative
The domain name integrityinitiative.net was first registered on 22 June 2015.
In the year to 23 November 2015 the Institute received £46,639 descibed as funding from FW Investments Partnership, Foreign Office, Centre for Naval Analysis [a US-government funded think tank], CAFOD for various national and international initiatives.
In the year to 23 November 2016 the Institute received:
£87,250 unrestricted funds, described as designated funds for various UK security, NHS, Royal Navy, NATO, Ukrainian and Russian research programmes.
£33,441 descrived as funding from Dulverton Trust and the FCO for a national and international programme.
There is no explicit mention of support for creation of the Integrity Initiative until the year to 23 November 2017 when the Institute received £307,000 from a private donor for the Integrity Initiative, and the first £124,567 from the Foreign Office grant of £250,000 for the financial years 2017/18.
A document dated 14 March 2017 is a draft bid for MoD funding for the period 2017-2019, evidently based on discussions with MoD officials. As the first application to the FCO is dated only six weeks later, it appears likely that the outcome of these discussions was that Donnelly was advised to apply through the FCO rather than directly to MoD.
3.1 FCO-led Russian Language Programme
The applications to the FCO request funding from the Russian Language Strategic Communication Programme. This appears to be the Russian Language Programme of the Conflict Security and Stability Fund, described in the Government's response on 20 July 2017 to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee's report on the UK's relations with Russia published four months earlier:
The FCO-led Russian Language Programme brings together expertise from the FCO, MOD, and DFID as well as external experts to co-ordinate a set of projects worth some £70m over four years. These projects seek to enhance independent media; to engage with Russian speakers; and to expose Russian Government disinformation.
Through this programme, the Government is working with a range of partners to enhance the quality of public and independent Russian language media so that it is able to provide Russian-speakers with reliable access to accurate information. The type of support given includes mentoring with UK media organisations; consultancy on programming; funded co-productions and support for regional Russian language media initiatives.
The anti-Russian tone of the material produced by the Integrity Initiative and its partner organizations, including promotion of what appears to be a hate campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church, would be unlikely to find ready welcome among Russian speakers. Yet the title of the programme and the Government's description make clear that the stated remit of the programme was to counter disinformation and provide reliable information in the Russian language. Without Parliamentary oversight, this remit appears to have been changed to include operations in other languages including English-language media in the UK. As the application from the Institute of Statecraft to this programme was dated 23 April 2017 and this Government response was dated 20 July 2017, it is clear that the Government misled the Foreign Affairs Committee by describing the Russian Language Programme as aimed at Russian speakers and as targeting Russian language media.
In an attempt to explain this away, Sir Alan Duncan, the Minister of State at the Foreign Office gave a misleading reply to a parliamentary question.
In April 2016 we launched a new four year strategic communications and media development programme authorised by the National Security Council, called the Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme. The former Russian Language Programme was amalgamated into this. The funding provided to the Institute for Statecraft was funded from the Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme.
Duncan does not say when the Russian Language Programme was amalgamated into the Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme, and does not explicitly say that all funding to the Institute was provided from this programme although this would be a natural reading of his reply. This document shows that the Russian Language Programme, one of the components of the Conflict Security and Stability Fund, was still current in the financial year 2017-18 with annual expenditure of £8 million. The first year of funding for the Integrity Initiative must therefore have been awarded from this programme, as implied by the application for 2017/18. It is difficult to read Duncan's answer as anything but an attempt to mislead without actually telling a lie. Duncan was criticized by MPs for misleading them further by attempting to maintain that the Integrity Initiative's Twitter account was not included in the activities funded by the FCO grant.
In answer to another question requesting a list of grants funded by the Russian Language Programme, Sir Alan Duncan replied:
Information about individual projects within the Programme will not be published, as this information could then be used to actively attempt to disrupt and undermine the Programme’s effectiveness.
In the CSSF summaries for the year 2018-19 neither the Russian Language programme nor the new Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme are listed, implying either that the Counter Disinformation programme is not part of the CSSF or that it is secret. It his however possible to identify recipients from tables of the FCO's monthly expenditure which show recent spending of between £100,000 and £200,0000 per month on the Institute for Statecraft, although these do not identify the programme from which this funding is coming.
The total cost of the project for the financial year 2017-18 was given as £582,635 of which £480,6352 was from FCO and the rest from NATO, partner institutions and the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence. The budget projection for 2018-19 gives a budget of £1.96 million for the funding requested from the FCO for 2018-19. The answer to a parliamentary question confirmed that this was awarded in full by the Foreign Office.
3.2 Co-funding
Co-funding of the Integrity Initiative for 2018-19 is listed:
Funding from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy, £12,000 for each inaugural workshop = £168,000
Funding from partner institutions £5,000 for each inaugural workshop = £70,000
Funding from NATO HQ for educational video films free provision of camera team
Funding from Lithuanian MOD to provide free all costs for their stratcom team for a monthly trip to support a new hub/cluster creation and to educate cluster leaders and key people in Vilnius in infowar techniques = £20,000
Funding from US State Dept, £250,000 for research and dissemination activities (excluding any activity in USA)
Funding from Smith Richardson Foundation, £45,000 for cluster activities in Europe and USA
Funding from Facebook, £100,000 for research and education activities
Funding from German business community, £25,000 for research and dissemination in EU countries
This would give a total income of £2.6 million for 2018-19. As discussed below, this does not include office costs, for which no funding source is given. The accounts filed for the years ending 23 November 2016 and 23 November 2017 state that the Institute of Statecraft had no employees during 2015, 2016 or 2017, implying that another agency was employing them and seconding them to work on the programme. The budget submitted to the FCO for 2018/19 for the Integrity Initiative includes salary costs for only four staff including Donnelly, though another document lists 18 individuals as the Temple Place resident team.
The State Department quite properly stipulates that the grant funding it provides may not be spent within the United States. The UK FCO appears to have no such scruples about funding covert political activities within the UK.
The handbook instructs staff to say if asked about funding that:
The IfS gets its funding from multiple sources to ensure its independence. These include: private individuals; charitable foundations; international organisations (EU, NATO); UK Govt (FCO, MOD)
There is no other mention in the documents of funding from the UK MoD. The plan is that the clusters should eventually be sustained by longer-term funding from NATO and the Atlantic Treaty Association:-
HQ NATO PDD [Public Diplomacy Division] has proved a reliable source of funding for national clusters. The ATA [Atlantic Treaty Association] promises to be the same, giving access to other pots of money within NATO and member nations.
The role of NATO here is not one of collective defence, but instead one of covert political manipulation within its member countries.
4 The offices and team of the Integrity Initiative
4.1 Offices and team
The Institute for Statecraft has an office at Two Temple Place, a historic building completed in 1895 by William Waldorf Astor and now owned by a charity, the Bulldog Trust. There is office space in the basement, shared by the Fore (a project initiated by the Bulldog Trust) and the Institute for Statecraft. Based on the footprint of the building, this would be about 4000 square feet of offices. The budget documents for the Integrity Initiative do not include any provision for office costs. This suggests that office rental costs are being covered by some other agency in the public or private sector and that for some reason this is being concealed. 2000 square feet of fully serviced office space in central London would cost about £180,000 per year, so this is a substantial benefit in kind. For the office team, the operation is being run on a tight budget economy-class flights and only £70/night for hotels or AirBnB.
The Temple Place resident team of the Institute for Statecraft is listed as
Simon Bracey Lane, Stephen Dalziel, Maria de Goeij, Nico de Pedro, Yusuf Desai, Chris Donnelly, Euan Grant, Charlie Hatton, Chris Hernon, Todd Leventhal, Victor Madeira, Johanna Moehring, Ben Robinson, Greg Rowett, Keith Sargent, Jon Searle, Guy Spindler, James Wilson.
Specialist team members are listed as
Eduard Abrahamyan, Diane Allen, Jamal Al-Tahat, Josh Arnold-Foster, Barrie Axford, Anne Bader, Qique Badia-Masoni, Oleksandr Danylyuk, Martin Dubbey, Harold Elletson, Perry Fawcett, Mark Galeotti, Babak Ganji, Francis Ghiles, Keir Giles, Glen Grant, Roger Golland, Jon Hazel, Steve Johnson, Phil Jolley, Stephen Jolly, Ren Kapur, Dan Kaszeta, Dmytro Kolomoiets, Karel Kullamaa, Birgy Lorenz, John Lough, Tim Reilly, Alan Riley, Andy Settle, James Sherr, Andrew Shortland, Luis Simon, Henry Strickland, Tomas Tauginas, Jason Wiseman, Sir Andrew Wood.
(SC) is appended to the names of Donnelly, Hazel, Kapur
(DV) is appended to the names of Allen, Arnold-Foster, Fawcett, Golland, Johnson, Settle, Shortland
The names listed as Team in the Integrity Initiative Handbook dated 30 May 2018 are almost the same as the names listed as Temple Place Resident Team for the Institute of Statecraft, with a few additional names from the Specialist Team members list. This indicates that almost all core staff of the Institute for Statecraft are working on the Integrity Initiative programme.
On another specialist and core list the addtional names Jonathan Chetwynd (possibly Chetwynd-Palmer, ex-army based in South Africa), Sean Cronin (possibly Cronin-Nowakowski, ex-army now KPMG) appear.
In addition to Donnelly and Lafayeedney, at least eight others on the team have a military background or have worked at the Defence Academy research unit that Donnelly headed.
4.1.1 Team members with military background (excluding founders Donnelly and Lafayeedney)
Stephen Dalziel his bio includes a year on a TA attachment in the Army, followed by six years at the Soviet Studies Research Centre, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst where Donnelly was also based. From 1988 to 2004 he worked at the BBC as a Russian Affairs analyst, followed by five years as Executive Director of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce while also working for and starting a consultancy firm.
Tim Reilly “Arctic/Russia-China specialistâ€Â. Commissioned into the Parachute Regiment in 1984 and served till 1990. He subsequently worked on business development in emerging markets including Russia. An article he published in March 2017 advocated a realist approach to post-Brexit relations with Russia.
Alex Finnen Executive Officer, Specialist Group Military Intelligence. Born in June 1952, he served at first in the Corps of Royal Engineers (Territorial Army), where he was promoted to Captain in 1994 and then Major in 1999. He transferred to the Intelligence Corps as Major on 1 June 2005. In 2010 he was awarded The Efficiency Decoration (Territorial) Medal. In 2014 he was listed as with the Parachute Regiment. In 2016 he was again listed with the Intelligence Corps. In his civilian role he is described as a Ëœretired member of the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) who, since retiring, has served on a variety of contracts with the EU and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). There is no mention of Finnen in the Directory of British Diplomats based on officially published data. In 2007 he was Deputy Head of the OSCE presence in Albania. A biographical note records that he served as Director General for Elections in Bosnia. He has provided electoral advice to FCO, DFID and the UK Ministry of Defence for a range of countries from 1996 to date. He has a doctorate and is an Honorary Associate Fellow of the Centre for Global Politics, Economy and Society at Oxford Brookes University.
Glen Grant, former British Army Lt-Colonel and artillery expert in the Joint Intelligence Cell during the 1991 Gulf War, who provides somewhat unrealistic military advice to the Kiev government.
Diane Allen former Royal Signals and currently Intelligence Corps reserve Lt Col; former CO Specialist Group Military Intelligence; worked with the Land Information Assessment Group and developing infowar capacity with the Army's 77 Brigade Awarded an OBE in June 2018.
Jonathan Hazel Intelligence Corps. Mentioned in dispatches as Captain (1993), Colonel in the Intelligence Corps by 2010 when he was the author of The Conflict With Extreme Islamism: How To Compete In The Global Information Environment (2010).
4.1.2 Team members with defence (non-military) background
Of the non-military team members, two have worked at the Advanced Research Assessment Group at the Defence Academy, headed by Donnelly from 2003 to 2007, and two others have worked in defence-related roles:
Anne Bader formerly served as a Senior Research Fellow and Director, Advanced Research Assessment Group.
James Sherr Between 1995-2008 he was a Fellow at the Advanced Research & Assessment Group.
Stephen Jolly was director of communications at MoD from December 2012 until June 2015. He left this role to take a research assignment as a senior research fellow in Military Information Operations at the Defence Academy on behalf of the MoD. According to Jolly he Ëœtrained as a special operations reservist/officer cadet with 15 (UK) Information Support Group, the UK military's tri-service psychological operations unit. As a result, between 1999-2001, he held a Visiting Fellowship in Psychological Warfare at the International Centre for Security Analysis, King's College London. It was in this capacity that he was commissioned by the International Public Relations Association to write the 2000 Mardin Essay on Psychological Warfare and Public Relations.- A 2011 biographical note states that Jolly was formerly an instructor on the Military Information Support Operations Course at the UK's Defence Intelligence & Security School, Chicksands (1997-2001).
Julian Lindley-French holds many honorary or visiting appointments:
Currently Senior Fellow at the Institute of Statecraft London, Director of Europa Analytica, Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow at the National Defense University in Washington, a member of the Strategic Advisory Group at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Visiting Programme Director at Wilton Park, Honorary Fellow of the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter. He is also a Member of the Strategic Advisory Panel of the UK Chief of Defence Staff.
4.1.3 Team members with no defence background
Simon Bracey Lane described as US & election campaign specialist'Â. In 2016 Bracey Lane was working in a field level position in Bernie Sanders's Iowa campaign headquarters. His bio is given on the website for the Adventium meeting.
Simon Bracey Lane has three years of elections experience in both the US & the UK. He has managed the distribution of communications for the Integrity Initiative cluster system and for the last year been developing the Integrity Initiative’s presence across Europe & the US. He has worked specifically to counter malign interference in Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Lithuania and the US. This work includes the commissioning of several papers, building discussion events and the formation of a media observatory.
Chris Hernon formerly a team manager at BBC monitoring, appears to have responsibility for social media.
Professor Alan Riley expertise on the energy market
Victor Madeira expertise given as Intelligence and National Security, Orthodox Church'Â. A bio announcing his appointment as a lecturer at the University of Buckingham stated:
Dr Victor Madeira comes to us from Cambridge (where he has been a lecturer and tutor for four years, working with Professor Christopher Andrew and Sir Richard Dearlove) and the Institute for Statecraft in London, directed by Chris Donnelly, where he is a Senior Fellow working on 21st Century security architecture.
Guy Spindler Chief Operating Officer, on the Companies House documents. He has broad responsibilities including information security. He appears on a list of MI6 officers released in 1999 with the annotation Guy David St. John Kelso Spindler: 87 Moscow, 97 Pretoria; dob 1962.'
Harold Elletson former MP and sometime MI6 agent who supervises the German Cluster. According to a report in 2002 -when Elletson became an MP in 1992, John Major personally authorised the intelligence service to continue using him as a secret contact'.Â
Charlie Hatton " expertise described as Marketing, PR, Project Development & Management, International relations English and Italian
Johanna Moehring " Military Power and Influence campaigns of part of a wider strategy French, German, English, Russian
Ben Robinson "Ukraine / Eastern Europe, Photographer, Education specialist" English, Russian
Nico de Pedro Analytical Russia specialist
Todd Leventhal State Department official whose role is described later
Martin Dubbey Managing director of Harod Associates, involved in preparing anti-doping case against Russian athletes. Also sole director of Astutus Intelligence, where Philip Matthews (Trustee of the Institute of Statecraft) was director from 2015 to 2016.
4.2 UK Cluster
The UK Cluster document lists the following groups, indicating that the Integrity Initiative's ambitions extend to other policy issues including NHS reform:
GIG (Governance and Integrity Group) one name
NHS Reform Group no names yet
Communication Engagement & Dialogue Group no names yet
Defence Acquisition Reform Group no names yet
Office Core Team Fellows
Office Core Team Associates
UK General Inner Core Russia
UK General Inner Core Military & Defence
UK General Outer Core Russia
UK General Outer Core Military & Defence
UK Journalists
From the expenditure records and budgets it appears that most cluster members who were not employees of the Institute were unpaid, except for a few consultancy payments for specific tasks such as preparing a report. A more subtle incentive to take part in such a scheme would have been the advantages of being on the inside, networking with senior government officials and military intelligence specialists. All concerned would know that this would open doors to future posts, consultancies and grant funding. On this basis, participants in such a network could reasonably be expected to declare their membership as a competing interest, whatever their personal motives for participating.
We have established that some of those included on the cluster lists had simply been on email lists, usually because they had attended a meeting organized by the Institute for Statecraft. However it is still relevant to study the identities and affiliations of these individuals because this may reveal what groups the Integrity Initiative was trying to draw into its network.
The procedure for the initial cluster foundation workshop is described in the budget document for 2018/19 as follows:
Connect cluster members, create internal national network, formally introduce them to the Integrity Initiative aims, practices and methodologies, establish target programme for research, dissemination and events.
New cluster able to self-organise. Increased coordination and shared best practice from cluster individuals and organisations working at the forefront of efforts countering RU disinfo, increased resource material for an Int'l audience.
Initial group of at least 8 members between core hub and network. Members agree team roles and start putting structures in place. Start exchanges of information with other clusters. Begin work on research and dissemination activities
5 Relationships of the Integrity Initiative to other organizations
The partner organizations of the Integrity initiative make up a nexus of NATO-connected think tanks including the Centre for European Reform, the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society and the Atlantic Council. Many individuals from these think tanks are also listed in the Clusters'Â.
5.1 Partner organizations listed on the Integrity Initiative website
Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB)
The Beacon Project link beaconproject.info leads to site under construction'. The domain name was registered on 19 April 2016 in Bratislava. This appears to be a project announced by the International Republican Institute in April 2016 that has never gone live.
Centre for European Policy Analysis (Washington DC) Mission is to promote an economically vibrant, strategically secure, and politically free Europe with close and enduring ties to the United States.' Edward Lucas is a Senior Vice-President.
European Values (Czechia) non-governmental policy institute defending liberal democracy' led by Jakub Janda who is named in the documents as a member of one of the clusters'.
Kremlin Watch (Czechia) a strategic program of the European Values Think-Tank
Political Capital Policy Research and Consulting Institute (Hungary)
University of Macedonia Public Opinion Research Unit
Res Public Affairs. Corporate Affairs GmbH (Berlin)
5.2 Other organizations listed as associated with the Integrity Initiative
StopFake there are multiple references to working with them in the 2018 application and budget plan:
We also worked with Stopfake in Ukraine, examining the excellent work done on this by them and their partners
We also arranged for the Lithuanian team to provide training on a regular basis for all our cluster leaders in the methodology of tracking and exposing Russian malign influence and disinformation, and linked them directly to the Ukrainian Stopfake leadership and to the UK LSE team (whom we took to Vilnius) to exchange practical experience.
Provide guest articles from Ifs and our clusters for StopFake's printed material published and distributed along the contact line in Eastern Ukraine
Sending cluster members to educational sessions abroad (IREX, Detector Media,StopFake, EUvsDisinfo, LT MOD Stratcom)
A modular training programme (based on IREX/StopFake material) that adapts media source examples as needed to be most relevant and accessible across our cluster network
StopFake received direct funding of £80145 from the FCO in April 2018.
Henry Jackson Society Drew Foxall is listed as Inner Core: Russia
Atlantic Treaty Association and Atlantic Council The Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) is described by NATO as
an umbrella organisation for the separate national associations, voluntary organisations and non-governmental organisations that formed to uphold the values of the Alliance after its creation in 1949. The Youth Atlantic Treaty Association (YATA) is the youth branch of the ATA and was formed in 1996.
The Atlantic Council is the US affiliate of the ATA. Four individuals with Atlantic Council email addresses are listed: Anders Aslund, Elizabeth Braw, Robert Nurick and Ben Nimmo.
In an impact assessment' dated 19 April 2016 of what was then called the Institute of Statecraft Project on Russian Influence', Nimmo is named as sole author of 12 of 22 outputs, and one has Nimmo and Edward Lucas as joint authors. Nimmo appears on a production schedule' as scheduled to produce 10,000 words on Mapping Russia's whole influence machine' by end of June 2016. Nimmo was receiving a monthly consultancy fee of £2500 in January 2016, and in August 2016 he invoiced the Institute for Statecraft for £5000 for August work on Integrity Initiative'. He is co-founder with Graham Brookie of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Lab, which received £450,000 from the Foreign Office in August 2018.
The cluster leader Savo Kentera is listed as President of Atlantic Council Montenegro.
Centre for European Reform Ian Bond, director of foreign policy
Royal United Services Institute Igor Sutyagin
Chatham House Three individuals with Chatham House emails are listed: James Nixey, Orsyia Lutsevych, James Sherr
European Council on Foreign Relations Four individuals with ECFR emails are listed: Nika Prislan, Borja Lasheras, Kadri Liik, Manuel Lafont Rapnoul. The European Council on Foreign relations receives direct funding from the FCO.
Hermitage Fund Two emails: William Browder, Vadim Kleiner
6 Role of the FCO and the Ministry of Defence in the Integrity Initiative
6.1 FCO staff associated with the Integrity Initiative
Three of those listed in the UK Cluster have held posts in or as director of the FCO’s Eastern Research Group:
Duncan Allan a bio gives his most recent FCO post as Principal Research Analyst, Eastern Research Group. A member of the FCO's Research Analysts since 1989, I've spent my career following the countries of the former Soviet Union, in particular Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. I've completed full postings and spells of temporary duty in Russia, Ukraine and Central Asia. I've also been seconded to FCO policy departments and the Cabinet Office'. He retired from the FCO in 2017, and is now director of Octant Research & Analysis Ltd and Associate Fellow on the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. In October 2018 Allan published a paper with Chatham House on the Salisbury poisonings calling for more confrontational responses by the UK government to the attack on the Skripals which he attributed to the Russian state.
Craig Oliphant head of the Eastern Research Group until he left the FCO in 2010, now Senior Adviser at a London-based NGO, Peaceful Change Initiative.
Alan Parfitt Head of the FCO Eastern Research Group as of August 2017. He has held this position since at least 2010.
Four have experience in communications:
Catherine Crozier listed on the Government Communication Service people finder' website as a Strategic Communications Advisor, Ministry of Defence.
Andy Pryce Head of Counter Disinformation and Media Development' at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, a position he does not advertise on his LinkedIn page, which lists the following previous postings:
British Resident Commissioner, British High Commission, Castries Sep 2013 Jun 2015. Responsible for UK relations with St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Deputy Consul General British Consulate General Houston Feb 2009 Sep 2013. Leader on development and delivery of British Government strategy across Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas.
Head of Public Affairs, British Embassy Washington Oct 2007 Feb 2009. Led UK public advocacy in the US; thoroughly modernised UK outreach; integrated social media campaigning, direct mail with traditional diplomacy.
Head of EU Affairs, British Embassy Helsinki Dec 2003 Oct 2007. Led UK EU advocacy in Finland during UK and Finnish Presidencies of the EU.
Deputy Programme Manager Foreign and Commonwealth Office 2002 2003 Led project to design, develop and deliver paradigm shifting new Intranet for British Foreign Service.
Richard Slack In 2011 Slack was listed as based in the British Embassy in Baghdad and in 2015 he was listed as Head of Communications at the British Embassy in Kabul. His current role is unclear.
Joanna Szostek now Lecturer in Political Communication, University of Glasgow. Previously based at Royal Holloway in the University of London, Szostek conducted a three-year fellowship from the European Commission on the reception of rival narratives about international politics among different groups of Ukrainians'. The project incorporated a secondment to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office from April to August 2017, during which she attended a seminar at the Institute of Statecraft.
The remaining one is Claire Lawrence, UK ambassador to Lithuania since 2015.
Of the four listed FCO staff who are to some extent specialists in communications, Crozier has left to work at the MoD, Szostek is an academic who was only briefly seconded to the FCO as part of a research project (Szostek), Slack has held a recent post that was at only mid-level seniority, and Pryce appears not to have held any previous posts in communications, his most recent posting being to the Caribbean.
The title of Head of Counter Disinformation and Media Development' appears in the public domain for Pryce only in relation to events at which he has appeared, for example at Stratcom DC organised by the Atlantic Council or in the press. On his own LinkedIn page he refers to himself only as a diplomat' and a senior strategic advisor'. As noted above, in a written answer to a parliamentary question in December 2018 the FCO stated:
In April 2016 we launched a new four year strategic communications and media development programme authorised by the National Security Council, called the Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme.
This programme had not previously been mentioned in public. Pryce's job title suggests that he is the programme officer for this scheme.
6.2 Ministry of Defence and military personnel named in documents
6.2.1 Key to acronyms
The acronyms embedded in the local-parts of the MoD email addresses listed in the documents give some clue to the scale and diversity of StratCom operations now overseen by the Ministry of Defence.
SGMI Specialist Group Military Intelligence, based at at Denison Barracks, Hermitage, Thatcham, Berkshire. SGMI is part of the 1st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Brigade which became operational on 1 September 2014. Among the other units in 1 ISR are 21 and 23 Special Air Service Regiments, 1-7 Military Intelligence Battalions, the Land Intelligence Fusion Centre and the Defence Cultural and Linguistic Support Unit. Overall it has 3,300 Regular and 3,000 Reservist personnel. According to the Army approximately 55% of the Intelligence Corps is employed within the 1st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Brigade'.
77X 77th Brigade also based at Denison Barracks and responsible for information activity'. According to an FoI disclosure the 77th Brigade (in mid 2018) included 203 Regular Army posts of which 190 were filled and 271 Reserve posts of which 150 were filled, making a total strength of 340 personnel.
PJHQ Permanent Joint Headquarters, based in Northwood
J2 operational intelligence division of PJHQ
CGS office of Chief of General Staff (head of the Army)
MSE Military Strategic Effects, part of the Operations Directorate in Whitehall. This branch was established around 1999 to 2000 when it was named Targeting and Information Operations. It was renamed Military Strategic effects in 2013. In mid 2018, according to an FoI disclosure, it contained 34 staff. From March 2014 to July 2015 it was headed by Chris Brazier, from then till March 2018 by Commodore Jonathan Burr, and since then by Air Commodore Nigel Colman.
FSECC Full Spectrum Effects Coordination Cell, a cross-department group set up in 2015 and overseen by a senior Tasking and Oversight Board chaired by Gwyn Jenkins (Deputy National Security Adviser for Conflict, Stability & Defence). The cell is based in MoD in Whitehall and works, according to a former member in co-operation with the Cabinet Office, HMT, FCO, DfID, Home Office, GCHQ, MI5 and SIS, principally against ISIL/Daesh.'
6.2.2 MoD affiliations
David Fields his LinkedIn profile states that he was Part of a small team which wrote the UK Ministry of Defence's strategic approach towards Russia' but is no longer employed by the MoD.
Joseph Walker-Cousins appears in three of the documents: under Saudi Arabia in the xcountry document, and in two other lists that include military officers working closely with the Integrity Initiative.
He was commissioned as Second Lieutenant (on probation) in the Honourable Artillery Company on 1 April 2002 with seniority backdated, and the next day resigned his commission. The reporting of these events in the Gazette was delayed. His LinkedIn profile records that he worked as an intern in the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza from September 2002 to February 2003, thena immediately resumed his Army career as Liaison Officer, British Army Reserves (including multiple tours in Iraq)' between Feb 2003 and Feb 2005. In December 2003 he joined the TA Intelligence Corps as Second Lieutenant. On 2 August 2006 he was promoted to captain in the TA Intelligence Corps. Information about his recent military career is available from a drunk driving case which came to court in May 2015. Major Alex Finnen, his superior officer, provided a character reference, telling the court that Capt Walker-Cousins was due to be promoted this year but that would definitely not be happening' as a result of his actions.
In civilian life his LinkedIn profile records that he worked at Aegis Defence Services from Feb 2005 to May 2006, and then joined the regular Army as Senior Staff Officer' in September 2006 in Kabul. He was stabilisation adviser to the UK's special envoy in Benghazi from 2011 to 2012 and head of the British Embassy Office in Benghazi from 2012-2014. Since April 2014, while still a reservist in the Intelligence Corps he has held the post of Director, Middle East Business Development for KBR, which holds the Operational Support Capability Contract for the Ministry of Defence.
On 13 March 2015 he contributed an article on Libya to The Guardian. On 17 November 2015 he was appointed as specialist adviser to the Foreign Affairs Committee's investigation of the British role in the attack on Libya, and made which included his position with KBR and his military status as Staff Officer, MENA Region, British Army Reserve'. In March 2018 he contributed an article extolling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman transformation of the Saudi economy -Â to the Institute for Statecraft's website. He did not reveal his affiliation to the Intelligence Corps in any of these contributions.
Lt Col Giles Harris Army Strategic Engagement Team, Ministry of Defence.
Charlie Hornick email local-part CGS-CIG-SO1b US army officer seconded to the office of the Chief of the General Staff, who has recently warned of the Russian threat.
Arron Rahaman email local-part OpsDir-MSE-StratComEurope an online bio gives his current post as Strategic Communication Adviser (NATO and European Policy), Ministry of Defence. He is aged 32 and has a degree in marketing but no military experience.
Nick Washer email local-part FSECC-1 UK Inner Core: Defence.
Nick Smith email local-part FSECC-4 UK Inner Core: Defence.
Joe Green email local-part PJHQ-J2-OPS-SO1-1. SO1 is staff officer level 1, equivalent to Lt Col.
Paul Kitching email local-part PJHQ-J2-EURASIA-SO3-3. is staff officer level 3, equivalent to Captain
Brigadier Chris Bell, commander of 77 Brigade. His predecessor, Alastair Aitken, also appears on the list with a private email address.
The involvement of these senior officers from military intelligence and information warfare units suggests that the MoD rather than the FCO is driving the Integrity Initiative programme. It is also of interest that reservists in Military Intelligence appear to be working under civilian cover without disclosing their intelligence background, though this can sometimes be found by searching the London Gazette.
Further evidence of the close links of the Integrity Initiative Programme with senior officers in military intelligence units comes from the schedule for the visit of Ukrainian special forces officers in July 2016, organized by the Institute for Statecraft. They had briefings or workshops with 3 Military Intelligence Battalion, HQ Field Army, 77 Brigade, Specialist Group Military Intelligence, NATO Intelligence Fusion Centre, and a final meeting with PJHQ staff who came to the Institute for Statecraft. The participants listed for 77 Brigade were the Commander, the Chief of Staff and the Deputy Chief of Staff.
6.2.3 Relation to the MoD's StratCom programme on the Syrian conflict
Kevin Stratford-Wright was a Lt-Colonel in the British Army till 2012, where his last position was as Head of Information Operations for the regional HQ in Afghanistan. From his LinkedIn page we have a description of an MoD StratCom programme between 2012 and 2015 that was the UK's largest of its kind since the Cold Warâ', and has become a template for activity elsewhere'.
UK Ministry of Defence Strategic Communications Programme Manager: June 2012 June 2015 (3 years 1 month) London, United Kingdom
Established a Strategic Communications programme to support UK government policy in a conflict zone.
Developed strategy and plans.
Engaged across the UK government (and internationally) to win support and approvals and to secure funding.
Developed Statements of Requirement in partnership with selected enabling-contractors.
Monitored and coordinated multiple project strands and reported on their activities and impact across UK government and to international partners.
Generated year on year efficiency savings through constructive engagement with enabling contractors.
The programme has been recognised as the UK’s largest of its kind since the Cold War. Its approach has also recently become a template for activity elsewhere (accepted by both UK government and international partners).
From the timing and scale of this StratCom programme, the conflict zone' can only be Syria. In 2012 Stratford-Wright was working in the Targeting and Information Operations(TIO) unit of the Ministry of Defence that was renamed Military Strategic Effects in 2013. As Stratford-Wright noted, his approach has become a template for activity elsewhere'. One feature of the MoD's Syria StratCom operation has been the outsourcing, via the FCO and the Conflict Security and Stability Fund, of activities to enabling contractors': companies or nonprofit foundations set up by former military officers. The media operation for the moderate armed opposition' was outsourced in late 2013. Although the tender document was issued by the FCO, metadata reveal that it was created on Stratford-Wright's computer. The contract was eventually passed to a spin-out company named InCoStrat set up by Paul Tilley, another former Lt Colonel who had worked with Stratford-Wright in the MoD as a StratCom specialist. The White Helmets operation was set up by James Le Mesurier with funding from the Conflict Security and Stability Fund to Mayday Rescue, a nonprofit foundation registered in the Netherlands.
7 Operations in UK politics and media
7.0.1 Covert funding of academics
Monthly expenditure records for the Integrity Initiative over the period December 2015 to January 2016 show payments to two UK-based academics:
Professor Andrew Wilson of UCL was paid £900 in March 2016 for his Active Measures' paper
Professor Julian Lindley-French was paid £285 for his blog Speaking Truth unto Power'. Lindley-French records that he is a member of the Chief of the Defence Staff's Strategic Advisory Panel it is not clear whether members of this panel have to declare competing interests.
We have not been able to find any public disclosure of this funding. So far expenditure records have been released only for these four months: it is unlikely that these four months were the only period in which covert payments to UK academics were made.
7.1 UK journalists named in documents
The Times Deborah Haynes (now with Sky News), David Aaronovitch, Dominic Kennedy
The Guardian Natalie Nougayrede, Carole Cadwalladr
The Economist Edward Lucas
FT Neil Buckley
BBC Jonathan Marcus
Paul Canning blogger with a focus on Ukraine, who has contributed to The Guardian
David Leask Chief Reporter, Herald Scotland
Borzhou Daragahi The Independent appears as the only individual listed under Turkey' in the document xcountry.pdf that tabulates countries and election dates.
We have asked journalists listed in the documents whether they have had any contact with the Integrity Initiative. It may be relevant that the Integrity Initiative Handbook states that members of clusters are to sign code of conduct & non-disclosure'.
Their responses can be grouped into four categories
7.1.1 I know nothing
David Aaronovitch When asked over Twitter whether he knew of or had had contact with Integrity Initiative, Institute for Statecraft or the UK Cluster, Aaronovitch replied
I have never heard of any of these three exotic entities. I think you have been hoaxed.
Jonathan Marcus (BBC) the BBC provided a statement to the Scottish Sunday Mail (print edition 16 December 2018) that
neither Marcus nor the BBC knew of the list of journalists, nor did he or the BBC consent to be part of any so-called cluster.
7.1.2 I attended a meeting or was on an email list, but was not involved
Borzou Daragahi:
I do receive their emails'
it goes to my junk email account'
I systematically subscribe to think tank email newsletters'
7.1.3 I am proud to be associated with them, there was nothing improper
Edward Lucas has written a commentary with title West is Once Again Failing the Test Set by Russian Aggression'. published on the Integrity Initiative website on 26 November 2018. In an article on RT on 23 November 2018, he was quoted as writing:
I have not been paid by the institute. But I applaud their work in dealing with the Chekist regime's pernicious information and influence operations.
He did not confirm or deny the existence of a network, responding to questions on Twitter with:
I don't see why one lot of people have to explain being on lists compiled by another lot of people
David Leask has been open about working with the Integrity Initiative. He has published two articles quoting “a spokesman for the Integrity Initiativeâ€Â, one on the visit of Andriy Parubiy and one on Russian media coverage of the Salisbury poisonings. He has endorsed the output of the twitter account @initintegrity and others associated with the Integrity Initiative such as Nimmo. He responded to the release of documents with a 12 tweet thread on Twitter., acknowledging contact with the Integrity Initiative but denouncing Sputnik for insinuation that I work for for or with a Nato/UK black ops'.
Leask's description of the Integrity Initiative as a network of researchers and journalists seeking to counter Russian propaganda and boost media literacy" confirms the existence of a network. In response to further questions, Leask asserted that government funding of the Integrity Initiative was hardly a secret'. On this he was mistaken. The official summary of the Russian Language Programme does not list the recipient implementing organizations' stating that Information has been withheld from publication on security grounds'. Although the government funding of £1.96 million for the Integrity Initiative in the current financial year is now a matter of public record following a parliamentary question, this information was not in the public domain until the documents were released on 5 November 2018. The source of funding for the Integrity Initiative was not mentioned on its public website. It would have been possible for a diligent researcher to infer the total FCO spending on the Institute for Statecraft by going through the monthly expenditure tables for the FCO, but this would not have revealed the specific funding for the Integrity Initiative programme. The accounts filed at Companies House show FCO funding of £124,567 for the year ending 23 November 2017, but not the £1.96 million awarded for the current financial year.
The Integrity Initiative documents include notes of a meeting with Leask on 27 March 2018, allegedly taken by Guy Spindler, Chief Operating Officer of the Institute for Statecraft. The main focus of the interview is on Leask's assessment of the prospects for the Scottish independence movement. The meeting finishes with a briefing on the misuse of Scottish Limited Partnerships as vehicles for money-laundering, which Leask's own investigative reporting has helped to expose. It is not clear whether he is aware of the unusual use of this business structure by the founders of the Institute for Statecraft.
7.1.4 No response or refusal to answer
Deborah Haynes no response.
Three of Haynes' stories between 2016 and 2018 can be linked to internal documents of the Integrity Initiative:
For the visit of Ukrainian special forces officers organised by the Institute of Statecraft, a one-hour meeting with Haynes was scheduled at the Institute of Statecraft's office in 2 Temple Place on 11 July 2016. Haynes wrote a story based on this meeting that appeared in The Times on 11 August 2016. Haynes was the only journalist scheduled for a meeting with the Ukrainian officers: all their other meetings were with military officers except for one with the House of Commons Defence Committee.
The draft application for MoD funding dated 20 March 2017 lists under Success so far' (for the Integrity Initiative) the lead front-page story by Haynes in The Times on 17 December 2016 with title Russia waging cyberwar against Britain'.
A document entitled Representative selection of Integrity Initiative staff 2018 presentations and media interviews on Russian disinformation and malign influence' lists under the outputs of Victor Madeira a report in the Times on 9 March 2018 by Fiona Hamilton, David Brown and Deborah Haynes with the title “Spy mystery: Sergei Skripal's contact with MI6 in Spain suggests links to Litvinenko case'Â. Victor Madeira is briefly quoted:
Victor Madeira, a senior fellow at the Institute for Statecraft in London, said yesterday that links with organised crime were entirely possible. Russia was a mafia state where organised crime and the authorities overlap, he said.
It may be relevant that Haynes is listed as an honorary member of the Pen & Sword club, whose main mission is “the promotion of media operations as a necessary and valued military skill in the 21st century.†This may be an appropriate aspiration for military officers, but not for journalists. The club has 334 members, including Steve Tatham (listed in the UK cluster), Paul Tilley and the former BBC correspondent Mark Laity. Almost all other members have a military background or are NATO officials.
Dominic Kennedy In response to an email asking whether he had heard of or was involved with the Integrity Initiative, Kennedy stated that he had not read the leaked documents, but did not answer the question.
On 14 April 2018 Haynes and Kennedy launched an attack on members of the Working Group on Syria Propaganda and Media in the Times, including a front-page article, a two-page spread and an anonymous editorial. Two members of the Working Group hold posts at the University of Edinburgh. Unable to find anything tying them to Russia, Kennedy attempted to suggest that the university was under Russian influence (based on a grant from the Russian cultural institute Russkiy Mir), and even that the city of Edinburgh was a base for Russian influence (based on the presence of Sputnik's office).
Neil Buckley (FT) No response when asked over Twitter whether he had had contact with the Integrity Initiative.
Carole Cadwalladr Identified in the third tranche of leaked documents as scheduled to talk at an event at the Frontline Club in early November 2018, co-organised by the Integrity Initiative and Foreign Desk Ltd. She confirmed that she had spoken at the event and did not receive a fee, but did not answer a question on whether she had been involved with the Integrity Initiative or its parent the Institute for Statecraft.
Natalie Nougayrede No response when asked over Twitter if she was involved with the Integrity Initiative. She appears also in the French cluster list. In the same list, with a note that he is Nougayrede's partner, is Nicholas Roche, whose current post is Director of Strategy at the Directorate of Military Applications of the French Atomic Energy Commission. It may be relevant that in May 2013, when she was editor of Le Monde, Natalie Nougayrede had a role in information operations in Syria. Under her direction, two Le Monde journalists acted as couriers to transfer samples provided by the opposition, allegedly from chemical attacks, to French intelligence agents in Jordan. Le Monde was then given the scoop of reporting that these samples had tested positive for sarin at the French chemical weapon detection lab at Le Bouchet.
7.2 Attempt to influence the House of Commons Defence Committee
Two of the Committee's Specialists David Nicholas and Eleanor Scarnell â€" are listed in the UK Cluster. Two current members of the Committee Julian Lewis, the chair and John Spellar appear in the NGW seminars invitation list' document, along with Scarnell and Nicholas. This suggests that the Integrity Initiative has attempted to influence this committee. Another indication of this is that several members of the Integrity Initiative team testified to the House of Commons Defence Committee between 1 March 2016 and 19 April 2016 on Russia: implications for UK defence and security'. For the visitors from the Ukrainian special forces, the Institute of Statecraft had scheduled a meeting with the Defence Committee on 12 July 2016.
7.3 Twitter account
Although the Twitter account @initintegrity accounts for only a very small proportion of the activity of the programme, it is relevant because unlike the covert activities of networks' the output of the Twitter account is direct evidence that the programme is being used for partisan political purposes. Labour MPs and officials have expressed outrage that the Twitter account has been used to attack the Leader of the Opposition and his staff.
8 Links of the Integrity Initiative with extremism in the Baltic States and Ukraine
Some activities of the Integrity Initiative in the Baltic states and Ukraine, where people who consider themselves Russian make up large minorities, appear likely to foment sectarian hatred and civil conflict.
8.1 Holocaust revisionism
The Integrity Initiative works closely with the Lithuanian government and armed forces. The officially-encouraged spread of Holocaust revisionism in the Baltic States has been documented in detail by the magazine Defending History. Lithuania and Latvia have passed laws that limit discourse about the Holocaust in their territories and deny the role of local helpers in the Nazi genocide. In Ukraine a law passed in 2015 assigned officially protected status to the OUN and other organizations that collaborated with the Nazis and played a key role in the mass murder of Jews.
Both the Lithuanian and Latvian governments promote the double genocide version of Holocaust revisionism, which equates the (undisputed) political repression in the Baltic states during the years of Soviet rule to the genocide directed against the Jewish populations of those countries. In November 2010 the UK ambassador to Lithuania (Simon Butt) drafted and sent a letter to the the President of Lithuania, co-signed by the ambassadors of Estonia, Finland, France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, that expressed concern over the growing manifestations of antisemitism and denounced the double genocide'Â version of history unequivocally:
Spurious attempts are made to equate the uniquely evil genocide of the Jews with Soviet crimes against Lithuania, which, though great in magnitude, cannot be regarded as equivalent in either their intention or result.
In May 2011 it was announced that Butt had retired from the Diplomatic Service (at the age of 53) and would be replaced as ambassador to Lithuania by David Hunt.
The Integrity Initiative documents report that Lithuanian armed forces have been training the British Army's 77th Brigade:
Lithuania has become particularly important in our network due to its expertise in dealing with Russian malign influence and disinformation. We currently have four centres of expertise in Lithuania. Since 2015 we have had a close link with the Lithuanian Armed Forces Stratcom team, currently drawing on their expertise, with the support of the Lithuanian Chief of Defence, to educate other national clusters on effective methodologies for tracking Russian activities. We initiated a link between this team and the UK 77 Bde, resulting in 77 Bde adopting the Lithuanian techniques.
8.2 Neo-Nazism
As documented above, the Integrity Initiative works closely with StopFake, which has downplayed or denied resurgence of Nazism in the Baltic states and Ukraine. For instance in this article StopFake defends military boot camps for children run by the Azov Battalion. The Azov Battalion was founded in 2014, and its first commander was Andriy Biletsky, who previously headed the neo-Nazi group Patriot of Ukraine. The US Congress has banned the use of US aid for provision of arms, training or other assistance to the Azov Battalion'.
StopFake has defended Ukrainian parliamentary speaker Andriy Parubiy against
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