MOSCOW. Feb 8 (Interfax) - Foreign countries are using nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to exploit the national factor to influence the situation in Russia ahead of the presidential election and are imposing ideas of ethnic disunity in the country's regions, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office said.
"It should be noted that unfriendly states regard the national factor as a way to influence the internal political situation in Russia ahead of our elections. Mindful of the multicultural fabric of our population, foreign organizations are imposing ideas of ethnic disunity [and] are creating the basis for interethnic conflict," the office's representative Tatyana Lazareva told the Federation Council's Commission on Protecting State Sovereignty on Thursday.
By way of example she cited the Free Buryatia Foundation (United States), designated undesirable in Russia, which "under the guise of educational activities undertook attempts to incite interethnic hatred and propagate separatist ideas among Buryatia's residents," she said.
"The same ideas were promoted by the Ukrainian 'Free Idel-Ural', the Japanese 'Union of Struggle for Reclaiming the Northern Territories' (both declared undesirable in Russia) and others. A number of foreign entities are exclusively oriented towards the topic of Crimea," Lazareva said.