December 12, 2007 (LPAC)--Russia has ordered all 15 regional offices of the British Council, which ostensibly promotes British culture abroad, to suspend all their operations beginning next month, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Only the council's Moscow head office will be allowed to remain open. Britain immediately vowed to defy the order at two of the offices, setting the stage for a potential police showdown in the new year--a course that the British embassy in Moscow warned could have serious consequences.

The move has been immediately labeled in UK and by most of the western media as a fall-out of last year's mysterious death of the ex-KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko in London. However, the British Council had been notorious in the Third World countries of being used as a tool for bringing about regime change, using foreign money through NGO-like campaigns against governments unwilling to serve the British interest.

In Russia, as well, the Kremlin has always been conscious of a repeat of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which it has seen as having been fomented by foreign NGOs using foreign money.

In addition, the British Council, offices of which were raided by tax personnel in 2004, has been involved in three years of legal wrangling with Russian authorities over non-payment of tax and questions over its legal status in Russia.