Russian agents are secretly working with environmental campaigners to halt fracking operations in the UK and the rest of Europe, the head of Nato warned yesterday.
Vladimir Putin’s government has ‘engaged actively’ with green groups and protesters in a sophisticated operation aimed at maintaining Europe’s reliance on energy exports from Moscow, said Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
He said the Russians had mounted a highly developed disinformation campaign to undermine attempts to exploit alternative energy sources such as shale gas.
Moves to start fracking in the UK have been disrupted following a sustained campaign by environmentalists that has created fears about its impact.
Speaking at the Chatham House foreign affairs think-tank in London, Mr Rasmussen said: ‘I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.’
He declined to give fuller details of the alleged plot, but said: ‘That is my interpretation.’
He would not say what form the Russians’ apparent engagement with the environmentalists took or whether groups concerned were aware that they were dealing with Moscow’s agents.
According to Mr Rasmussen, who supports the experimental fracking operations, improving energy security is of the ‘utmost importance’ and requires European nations to develop more diverse sources of supply.
‘It also, in my opinion, involves the better functioning of the European energy market so that one single supplier is not able to blackmail one single nation,’ he said.
Britain has vast reserves of shale gas trapped in rocks thousands of feet underground that may be extracted by firing water and chemicals to fracture the rock.
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shall she take orders from Mother China? 
