Bribery, Blackmail and Bond-style Gadgets. What the Fsb Says Britain is Up to in Russia

The head of Russia's FSB spy agency yesterday accused Britain and MI6 of leading a campaign to destabilize the country, and said that British agents were using old-fashioned techniques such as "bribery and blackmail" to recruit Russian citizens.

Nikolai Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, said foreign spies were trying to weaken and dismantle Russia ahead of elections for the Duma (parliament) in December and a presidential poll next year. He singled out Britain for special mention. In an interview with the mass-selling Argumenty I Fakty newspaper, Mr Patrushev said the British intelligence agency MI6 was not only recruiting spies but was also attempting to meddle directly in Russia's internal affairs.

He also claimed that British intelligence was supplying its Russian agents with new gadgets. They included a James Bond-like communications device hidden in a laptop charger, and sophisticated software that allowed agents to use their computers without leaving traces on the hard drive.

"MI6 is not only gathering intelligence in all areas but is also trying to influence the domestic political situation in our country, Mr Patrushev said. "Politicians thinking in cold war categories still retain influence in a number of western nations."

He added: "Our file on British intelligence services' activities is huge. We know their strengths and weaknesses. Since the times of Queen Elizabeth I, British intelligence has operated on the principle that the end justifies the means. Their main methods of recruitment are money, bribery, blackmail and immunity from prosecution."

Mr Patrushev's attack closely reflects Kremlin thinking and follows the bitter diplomatic row between Moscow and the UK over the murder of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Mr Litvinenko served in the FSB and was an outspoken critic of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent .

In July, the foreign secretary, David Miliband, severed all contact with the FSB in a clear signal that the government believes Russia's security agencies had a hand in Mr Litvinenko's murder. The chief suspect, Andrei Lugovoi, is an ex-FSB agent. Britain also expelled four Russian intelligence officers, prompting Moscow to remove four British diplomats .

Mr Patrushev said the UK was seeking to recruit agents from among the large Russian emigre community in London. Citing Boris Berezovsky, the former oligarch wanted by the Kremlin, Mr Patrushev suggested this tactic had been a flop. "The English have been trying to recruit people who have committed crimes and are hiding from Russian justice. This has failed," he said.

The FSB director also alluded to the infamous "rock scandal" when British agents were allegedly caught red-handed twiddling with a crude man-made "rock" near a Moscow park. Four British diplomats were shown on Russian TV in January 2006 next to the device, which apparently allowed Russian agents to communicate remotely with their British handlers.

Experts said yesterday there was no doubt the west had stepped up its spying activities against Moscow. This was hardly surprising, given Russia's renewed economic might and its increasingly hawkish direction under Mr Putin.

Yesterday one former senior KGB officer said that despite Britain's relatively small size, Russia took its intelligence agencies very seriously. "As an official in the KGB I never treated Britain as a minor country. It has a major influence on international affairs," Major General Vagif Guseynov, the former head of the KGB in Azerbaijan and an analyst, told the Guardian.

Diplomatic sources say British-Russian relations have yet to recover from this summer's diplomatic row, and describe Russian feelings as "bruised". As a result, Gordon Brown and Mr Putin are unlikely to meet before the G8 summit next July.

Mr Putin was head of the FSB until he became prime minister in 1999 and then president. He is known to be close to Mr Patrushev. Yesterday the FSB director also launched an attack on non-governmental organizations, describing them as a front for foreign spies. "There is a danger of foreign NGOs being used to finance activities to undermine Russia," he said.

Moscow believes western governments funded the NGOs that helped instigate the Georgian and Ukrainian "orange" revolutions by organizing the opposition in those countries and facilitating peaceful protest there. It does not want - and is paranoid about - the prospect of a similar revolution in Russia.

The FSB has been remarkably successful in uncovering foreign espionage activities, Mr Patrushev said. Since 2003, his agency had unmasked 270 informers and 70 agents - 35 of them foreigners.

He also claimed the CIA and MI6 co-operated closely with intelligence services in the post-Soviet Baltic states, Poland and Georgia - all of whom have brittle relations with their larger neighbor. But British agents were the most intrusive of the lot, he said, followed by the Turks, who were trying to sow dissent in the country's Muslim regions.

Timeline: bad blood

November 1 2006 Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko poisoned with radio-active polonium-210 after drinking tea at Millennium hotel in London

November 24 On his deathbed in a London hospital, Litvinenko accuses Vladimir Putin of having ordered his murder, an accusation the Kremlin denies

December British detectives fly to Moscow to interview their chief suspect, former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi. Lugovoi says he is innocent

May 22 2007 Crown Prosecution Service charges Lugovoi with murder. Evidence provided by Scotland Yard shows trail of polonium from Moscow to London

July 10 Russia turns down extradition request. Mr Putin accuses Britain of "stupidity" and "colonial thinking"

July 16 Foreign secretary David Miliband announces expulsion of four Russian diplomats.

July 19 Russia expels four British diplomats

August 17 Russia closes down the main FM frequency of BBC World Service

September 16 Lugovoi announces he is to run for parliament as member of the ultra-nationalist pro-Kremlin Liberal Democratic party