Britain may broadcast the financial secrets of Russia\u2019s ruling elite as part of the information war against the Putin regime, the Foreign Secretary has indicated.<\/p>\n
Philip Hammond said he was interested by the idea of publicising the wealth of the Russian president\u2019s inner circle in order to embarrass them in front of their people, as part of the response to the ongoing incursion into eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The Foreign Secretary warned that Putin is rapidly modernising his armed forces, and warned Russia\u2019s bid to destabilise eastern Europe poses \u201cthe greatest single threat\u201d to British national security.<\/p>\n
Mr Hammond said that Britain must now \u201caccept\u201d that efforts to offer Russia its \u201crightful place\u201d in the post-Cold War order had been \u201crebuffed\u201d.<\/p>\n
It marks a change in tone from the British government: David Cameron has repeated said that the door is open to Russia to normalise relations.<\/p>\n
He warned that Russia\u2019s rapid rearmament is a \u201csignificant cause for concern,\u201d and confirmed that British intelligence agencies are now recruiting Russian speakers.<\/p>\n
The wealth of Putin\u2019s court is opaque, but undoubtedly runs into tens of billions of dollars held in offshore accounts and property in London and New York. <\/p>\n
Official statements of Putin\u2019s wealth – a \u00a396,000 a year salary, a flat and three cars – are frequently met with derision.<\/p>\n
Asked if there was a case for the \u201cinteresting\u201d financial arrangements of members of Putin\u2019s inner circle to be published by the British government, Mr Hammond replied: \u201cThere might be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we talk about having further steps that we can take, increasing the pressure on Russia, one the headings that we regularly review is strategic communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is an interesting thought and I will make sure the Strat Comms people are thinking precisely about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Cameron has suggested the BBC budget should be increased to help its Russian and Ukrainian language services counter Russian television propaganda.<\/p>\n
Source: The Telegraph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Britain may broadcast the financial secrets of Russia\u2019s ruling elite as part of the information war against the Putin regime, the Foreign Secretary has indicated. Philip Hammond said he was interested by the idea of publicising the wealth of the Russian president\u2019s inner circle in order to embarrass them in front of their people, as … Continue reading “Britain warns it will expose Putin’s financial secrets”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[186,11167,11166,11168,66,67,2698],"class_list":["post-17988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-britain","tag-foreign-secretary","tag-offshore-accounts","tag-philip-hammond","tag-russia","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-wealth"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17989,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17988\/revisions\/17989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}