THE SNP’s Stewart Hosie refused to be drawn on whether he thought his former boss was an “agent of the Russian state” at the press conference following yesterday’s publication of a report into the Kremlin’s meddling in UK politics.
For the last three years Alex Salmond has presented a weekly show on Russian state-owned broadcaster RT. His regular co-host on the programme is former SNP MP and National columnist Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh.
The report made reference to “a buffer of Westerners who become de facto Russian state agents” both knowingly and unknowingly.
Hosie – who sits on the committee and has been instrumental in pulling the report together – was asked: “Do you include the Edinburgh-based Sputnik press agency in this, Russia Today, and particularly, your former colleague Alex Salmond? Is he a de facto agent of the Russian state?”
Hosie said the reference to de facto agents was in relation to “accountants, lawyers, estate agents, people who do company formation, wittingly or unwittingly for people close to the Russian state”.
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He added: “We actually say that there was in the run-up to the EU referendum a preponderance of anti-EU, pro-Brexit pieces on RT and Sputnik.
“What the report does not do is make any criticism of any individual programme maker or commentator or presenter. That’s not what this is about. It’s about RT and Sputnik as institutions who are able, very quickly, when they need to, to get out the Russian state version of events. It’s not a criticism of any particular individual at all. And I don’t think it can be much clearer than that.”
The report said that “the arrival of Russian money” in London resulted in “a growth industry of enablers – individuals and organisations who manage and lobby for the Russian elite in the UK”.
It added: “Lawyers, accountants, estate agents and PR professionals have played a role, wittingly or unwittingly, in the extension of Russian influence which is often linked to promoting the nefarious interests of the Russian state.”
The report says a large private security industry has developed in the UK “to service the needs of the Russian elite” which includes protection, seeking “kompromat [compromising material]” and to “help launder money”.
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