A top private school for girls hosted the head of the UK arm of a Kremlin cultural agency linked to Russian intelligence, The Independent can reveal.
The UK head of Rossotrudnichestvo spoke at £16,563-a-year Oxford High School at a “Russian Conference” in 2019, which was attended by more than 150 pupils from private and state schools – even posing for a picture with attendees in front of the agency’s logo.
Anton Chesnokov also spoke at the same event in autumn 2018 – months after the Salisbury nerve agent attack, believed to have been carried out by a Russian hit squad, which caused a woman’s death.
In 2017, the school also welcomed the first secretary Sergey Gushchin from the Russian Embassy, with pupils from Eton College in attendance.
Rossotrudnichestvo’s UK Facebook page has mentioned the Oxford girls’ day school – whose alumnae include actresses Dame Maggie Smith and Miriam Margolyes, and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell – on a series of occasions.
In 2019 it posted photos of pupils getting their visa applications submitted for a trip to Russia, as well as pictures of them during the visit.
But the school told The Independent that Rossotrudnichestvo “had no involvement” in the events mentioned on its Facebook page – saying “we can only assume that they were taken by the agency from the Oxford High twitter feed”.
A Henry Jackson think tank report in late 2018 referenced that Rossotrudnichestvo – the UK branch of which was based in west London, near Kensington Palace – was home to undeclared intelligence officers.
In 2013, it emerged the FBI was investigating whether the US-based director of a Rossotrudnichestvo exchange programme was clandestinely recruiting Americans as possible intelligence assets.
The Russian Embassy in Washington denied that the cultural centre was involved in the recruitment of spies, the Washington Post reported.
The disclosure of Oxford High School’s association with Rossotrudnichestvo comes after the United Nations General Assembly voted on Thursday to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council following its invasion of Ukraine. On Tuesday, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, accused Russian troops of carrying out the “most terrible war crimes” since the Second World War.
Oxford High School’s website detailed how the Russian conference in November 2019 was “on a scale and had an impact bigger than anything we’ve seen before”.
The website post revealed the involvement of Rossotrudnichestvo’s Mr Chesnokov in proceedings at the school and displayed a picture of him posing surrounded by pupils.
In the background, a screen displayed Rossotrudnichestvo’s logo.
“The day was wrapped up by a gracious message of encouragement and support from Mr Anton Chesnokov, a representative of the Russian Cultural Centre Rossotrudnichestvo,” the website post said.
According to the school’s magazine, Mr Chesnokov also attended the same event in 2018.
The autumn 2018 edition of Minerva, Oxford High School’s magazine, includes an article about the day.
It reads: “This term, Oxford High School hosted a conference for over 50 A Level students currently studying Russian at OHS, Harrow… The Event culminated in some inspirational words from Anton Chesnokov, the Director of Rossotrudnichestvo (Russian Culture House).”
The conference came just months after the nerve agent Novichok was used to target former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March 2018. The then prime minister Theresa May told MPs later that month it was “highly likely” Russia was responsible.
Military personnel wearing protective suits investigating the poisoning of Sergei Skripal on March 11, 2018 in Salisbury
