Alarm at Russian expansion had at this time caused a flurry of British intelligence activity. Russia was fighting a tremendous spirit of resistance in its newly conquered territories in the Caucasus, and in a secret service operation Palmerston sent a British ship, the Vixen, into the Black Sea in 1836 to run arms to Chechen resistance fighters there. It caused a diplomatic incident when the ship was intercepted by Russian forces, but Palmerston sent an assurance to Russian foreign minister Count Nesselrode that the British government had no knowledge of the venture – just as Nesselrode was to assure Palmerston two years later that the Russian government had not authorised Witkiewicz’ mission to Kabul. Both men were highly accomplished liars.
I am still working very hard indeed on Sikunder Burnes: Master of the Great Game and I thought you might enjoy that paragraph as a little teaser, given its contemporary relevance. The world hasn’t really changed that much in the intervening 180 years.
This is from Clark, testing to see if I can post a comment that appears to have been posted by Craig. It occurred to me that I may only need Craig’s e-mail address, and not his username and password.
Interesting. I seem to be able to trick Gravatar, but I can’t get the blue background from craigmurray.org.uk
Craig
You may not have noticed that somebody puppet-socked a comment under my name in the middle of ‘ Stating the Obvious’. It was about Baroness Amos, personal and offensive and nothing whatsoever to do with me.
I complained about it at the end of the comments but nothing has been changed.
Please can you or mods check that my details have not been copied/ abused. Thanks.
Is the Russian occupation of the Crimea a case of aggressive expansionism by Moscow or aimed at at blocking a scheme by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to roll right up to the Russia’s western border? WikiLeaks has revealed a secret cabledescribing a meeting between French and American diplomats that suggests the latter, a plan that has been in the works since at least 2009.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/13/wikileaks-ukraine-and-nato/
A Relentless March to Russia’s Doorstep
WikiLeaks, Ukraine and NATO