Hidden under the guise of a civilian “countering disinformation” organization, British intelligence outfit MI6 has helped build a vast propaganda apparatus, leaked documents reveal. Once targeting only Russia, it has recently expanded its scope to Iran, Gaza, and beyond, as this MintPress News investigation reveals.
Britain’s Hidden Information Warfare Machine
This investigation, based on secret leaked documents, including internal Intranet pages, reveals a clandestine new propaganda unit inside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Directed by MI6 and hidden behind civilian cover, the unit exists to professionalize and expand the British state’s long-running practice of promoting disinformation under the guise of “countering disinformation”.
The operation against Russia began in 2014 through the Russian Language Program and its apparent successor, the Counter Disinformation and Media Development (CDMD) program. It was expanded to Ukraine after the launch of Russia’s Special Military Operation in 2022. Iran and China were added as formal targets in 2023, with Gaza incorporated on a semi-detached basis. The leaked materials allow us to re-read what is publicly known about British government propaganda and actions against the Islamic Republic of Iran. The pattern is unmistakable: whenever one iteration is exposed, the secret state simply rebadges and relaunches the same operation while quietly broadening its targets.
The Integrity Initiative Scandal and the Evolution of UK Counter-Disinformation Efforts
The UK government’s counter-disinformation work began with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Russian Language Program under the HMG (His Majesty’s Government) Russia Unit. Officially aimed at Russian-speaking audiences abroad, it is this program from which the Institute for Statecraft applied for funding for its flagship project, the Integrity Initiative.
In practice, the Integrity Initiative largely operated in English (not in Russian) and extended well beyond its supposed foreign focus. Leaked documents in 2018 revealed that it built international “clusters” of journalists, academics and policymakers, and amplified material that targeted UK domestic politics — including sustained attacks on Jeremy Corbyn the then-leader of the Labour Party.
The Integrity Initiative funded by the secret state to undermine the Leader of the Opposition
The scandal broke in late 2018 following a major data breach. It soon became apparent that the think tank running the project, the Institute for Statecraft, listed an abandoned mill in Fife, Scotland, as its registered address. Investigations of the leaked documents also showed multiple intelligence links to the project, including most notably the director of the project Chris Donnelly who was revealed to be an Honorary Colonel in a hitherto secret military organization called the Specialist Group Military Intelligence. Foreign Office official Andy Pryce was also named in the files, and it became apparent that he was effectively in charge of the program that funded the project. Even the mainstream media began to show an interest.
Gateside Mills in Fife. Derelict and abandoned.
In December 2018 the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) opened an inquiry into the Institute for Statecraft. Its October 2019 report was highly critical. The Executive Summary stated that the organization “was not meeting the charity test required for continuing registration as a charity in Scotland” for three main reasons:
- its purposes were not entirely charitable;
- the Integrity Initiative “did not provide public benefit in furtherance of the charity’s purposes;”
- private benefit to charity trustees “was not incidental.”
OSCR also found that trustees had breached their duties, including through “a lack of collective decision-making” and “failure to provide effective oversight” of the Integrity Initiative’s Twitter account, which resulted in “severe reputational damage”.
In response, the Institute for Statecraft terminated its involvement in the Integrity Initiative, moved the project to a non-charitable entity, ceased paying trustees, and implemented governance reforms. OSCR ultimately took no formal action against it.
The Institute’s website was taken offline in early 2019 and never reinstated. The company itself was dissolved in 2023.
The Institute for Statecraft website, 5 February 2019.
By this point, the original Russian Language Program had already been restructured. But it has never been exactly clear what happened or when. According to some sources, the Counter Disinformation and Media Development (CDMD) Program was created in April 2016. In 2018 in a written answer, the Minister of State, Alan Duncan claimed:
“The Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Russian Language Program was launched in 2014 following Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. In April 2016 we launched a new four-year strategic communications and media development program authorized by the National Security Council, called the Counter Disinformation and Media Development Program. The former Russian Language Program was amalgamated into this. The funding provided to the Institute for Statecraft was funded from the Counter Disinformation and Media Development Program.”
But if we look closer at the precise sequence of events, contradictions in the story emerge. The RLP was created in 2014 and according to the government response to the Foreign Affairs Committee report on Russia, it had a budget of £70 million (U.S.$93 million) for its first four years. It is worth quoting the official view at length.
“The FCO-led Russian Language Program brings together expertise from the FCO, MOD, and DFID as well as external experts… These projects seek to enhance independent media; to engage with Russian speakers; and to expose Russian Government disinformation.”
“Through this program, the Government is working with a range of partners to enhance the quality of public and independent Russian language media so that it is able to provide Russian-speakers with reliable access to accurate information. The type of support given includes mentoring with UK media organizations; consultancy on programming; funded co-productions and support for regional Russian language media initiatives.”
As can be seen, the program was explicitly related to activities in the Russian language. And yet, the Integrity Initiative was not. What could explain this seeming mismatch?
The government summary just cited was one of the first mentions of the RLP, and it came on 20 July 2017. But this was not the first public mention of the program. In fact there was one other earlier statement published the day before. This was a program summary which gave further details. It is interesting to note that the Russian Language Program had been operational over three years before the FCO announced it to Parliament and the public. This in itself is an indication that it was a covert operation. This perception is only enhanced by the program document itself. There is an asterisk beside the column headed “implementing organizations” and below, the explanation given for omitting the organizations involved is “Information has been withheld from publication on security grounds”. This is a clue that the intelligence services – specifically MI6 – were involved.
The conclusion to which we are led is that the RLP was a covert operation which the FCO made public in 2017 and then, once it was apparent that the Integrity Initiative did not fit the remit, a new supposed program was necessitated, even though dating it to 2016 flatly contradicted previous official statements.
“Information has been withheld from publication on security grounds”
The Money Trail: CSSF Funding and Andy Pryce’s Central Role
The Russian Language Program and the Counter Disinformation and Media Development (CDMD) Program, received funding from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF).
The CSSF is an intelligence-directed fund controlled from the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office, which is an intelligence unit. The money was given by the FCO (later FCDO), though strategic oversight sat at the heart of the UK’s intelligence apparatus.
Official records show the CDMD program alone spent over £80 million (U.S.$106 million) in the three years to 2021, with substantial additional funding reportedly continuing in later years including more than £33 million (U.S.$44 million) in the year 2022-23. Taken together with the first four years of the RLP (£70m), the program disbursed over £150 million – or $199 million – in the nine years to 2023.
Andy Pryce appears to have overseen both the RLP and CDMD. He claims on his LinkedIn profile to have run the CDMD since July 2015. But even the FCO statement only claims it started in April 2016. In that role, he directly authorized funding to the Integrity Initiative. Pryce also shaped the British government’s communications response to the 2018 Salisbury incident – the alleged poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. This is reported to have been a turning point in British propaganda tactics.
According to the Daily Express:
“In the five weeks since the attempted assassination of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, Moscow has been pushing out conspiracy theories. Whitehall sources say two in every three stories shared on social media are from media outlets backed by the Kremlin… The fact that British ministers have to remain tight-lipped while the painstaking probe by police, intelligence services and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons laboratories takes place, has left a vacuum, which is being filled by Russia…”
“Until a fortnight ago, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seemed content simply to post statements rebutting the most outrageous claims. But the last fortnight has seen a series of mini-videos, which, sources say, “mark a departure” from the norm. They are said to be the brainchild of Andy Pryce the FO’s head of counter-disinformation and media development.”
The report goes on: “One video, poses six questions that Vladimir Putin’s Russia has so far failed to answer.” Among these is “Why does Russia persistently cover up the use of chemical weapons in Assad’s brutal regime in Syria?” Not only is this completely false – neither Russia nor the government of Bashar al-Assad used, or covered up the use of, chemical weapons – but it is ironic, given the direct role played by MI6 in fabricating chemical attacks in Syria.
Alex Aiken, who was instrumental in the creation of yet another controversial propaganda unit in government, the Rapid Response Unit, remarked:
“It took 13 days to pull together the authoritative, government response to the Salisbury poisonings, which involved the communication staff and all other elements of the national security establishment working together to declassify the intelligence where appropriate, and put together the case that would be understood.”
Post Salisbury, the National Security Communications Team (NSCT), yet another of the covert units set up by British intelligence in response to the Salisbury “poisoning” operation in April 2018 (and also funded by the CSSF) was reported in regard to “harnessing ‘the incredible power of declassified intelligence’ as a core role and that they, as a team, must “provide a stronger bridging function.” They also stated that the use of intelligence is “much more part of the discourse and discussion” and that ‘intelligence is there to be used’.”
Leaked emails later exposed Pryce’s close operational coordination with journalist Paul Mason, with multiple accounts describing him as Mason’s handler. Together they were involved in targeting critics of British intelligence operations in Syria, including the present author.
Though Pryce “denies ever having worked for MI6, or having ever operated as an intelligence agent or covert operative,” his leadership of an intelligence-funded program makes clear he operated under intelligence direction.
Pryce is a key operative who will appear repeatedly in this story.
Andy Pryce, disinformation professional, 2025
The Government Information Cell: New Front in 2022
In February 2022, the UK government created the Government Information Cell to support its response to alleged Russian disinformation in relation to the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine. It pooled cross-government expertise in analysis, intelligence assessment and strategic communications.
Catherine Hunt, later a key figure in the FCDO’s subsequent covert propaganda unit served as Head of Analysis in the new cell.
The GIC was created out of a previous covert MI6 propaganda unit called the Counter-Daesh Coalition Communications Cell, which oversaw UK disinformation activities in both Iraq and Syria. Overall, it is reported that the UK spent some £350 million (U.S. $465 million) on regime change in Syria. One of the key elements of the propaganda war were the multimillion-dollar contracts for MI6 contractors like Ark, Albany Associates, Incostrat and Mayday Rescue, better known as the White Helmets. Amongst the crimes to which they were accessory was the creation of fake chemical weapons attacks in Syria. These were directed by MI6 and involved the White Helmets in constructing a narrative that the so-called Red Line had been crossed by the government of Bashar al-Assad. We can note that in more than one of these faked events civilians were killed for the purpose of artful arrangement before the world’s media, such as in Douma in 2018.
We can note that the CCCC was overseen in the early years by Alicia Kearns, who went on to be an MI6 contractor herself in Lebanon. Later she became a member of parliament, and, between 2022 and 2024, was the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament. Funding for the CCCC and for its successor came from the intelligence slush fund, the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.
HMG Russia Unit: The Covert Liaison Point Inside the FCDO
The Counter Disinformation and Media Development (CDMD) Program formed a core part of the HMG Russia Unit, located inside the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate (EECAD) of the FCDO.
HMG Russia Unit: “Liaison point for covert aspects of EECAD work”
Internal FCDO intranet files state that the HMG Russia Unit is the “liaison point for covert aspects of EECAD work”. Andy Pryce was based in this unit while overseeing CDMD and the Integrity Initiative. His role in CDMD does little to undermine perceptions that he is very closely involved with the intelligence services. However, his cover was blown repeatedly. First in 2018, after which he was dispatched to Brussels, and again in 2022 over his coordination with journalist Paul Mason. We will now discuss this period.
Pryce’s LinkedIn profile states he was in Brussels from November 2019 to December 2021. It would appear that he remained attached to the HMG Russia Unit for the duration. The OSCR report on the Integrity Initiative was finalized just days before he took up the new post. His apparent “return” to London was in January 2022. Only months later, leaked emails between Pryce and Mason appeared to show that Pryce was briefing Mason (and others), and was, in effect, potentially Mason’s “handler.” Mason did not take kindly to being described as an MI6 “agent” and threatened this author and others with legal action, as can be seen below.
However, in a hilarious turn of events, this year, more of Mason’s emails were leaked. Among them were communications with his lawyer asking for advice on whether he could sue the present author for libel, who replied that it would be difficult to say that he had no contact with the U.K. intelligence services.
But there was one detail in the emails which casts doubt on the claim that Pryce was simply in a civilian role in Brussels. This was when Mason claims in an email to his lawyer that he thought Pryce was not in intelligence, since Pryce had told him he was attached to the Counter Disinformation Unit.
Paul Mason is not an MI6 Agent. Direct Message to the present author from Mason, 16 June 2022.
David Miller (who else) – Mason asks for legal advice on whether it’s a libel to call him an “MI6 Agent”.
Mason’s lawyer advises that Mason should not say he doesn’t have any contact with “Britain’s secret state”.
Mason claims here that he thought Pryce was not in intelligence since Pryce had told him he was in the Counter Disinformation Unit.
This would appear to suggest that his role there was covert. It certainly has not appeared on his Linkedin page or in any other public source. The Counter Disinformation Unit (originally called the Counter Disinformation Cell) was created in response to the Salisbury/Skripal incident. Given Pryce’s claimed leading role in the Skripal operation, it would not be too surprising to find he played a role in the unit. If so, this adds more weight to the idea that his job in Brussels was a cover role.
Rebranding Under Pressure: The Birth of the Information Threats and Influence Directorate
Pryce was only back in London for a few months before the CDU became controversial. By late 2022 the Government Information Cell (GIC) and the Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) faced intense criticism and exposure from both left and right. The government was forced to admit to the COVID-19 Inquiry that the CDU had “worked closely” with the U.K. intelligence community.
Susannah Story, Director General at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, also noted that “At its peak, the Counter Disinformation Cell [the former name of the CDU] was formed of a team of up to 50, however, this figure is indicative. The CDC was virtual and flexible in nature, with DCMS and other departments pulling on their wider resources (which may not have been entirely focused on disinformation) as needed.” So, yet again the apparently covert connection of Pryce to the CDU was also intelligence related.
The pushback the covert units received also forced them into rebranding. Thus, the CDU was renamed as the National Security Online Information Team in October 2023.
In March 2023 the FCDO created the Information Threats and Influence Directorate (ITID). It folded in the Counter Disinformation and Media Development (CDMD) Program, the GIC and related functions. At the same time the strategic need to broaden targets beyond Russia/Ukraine to Iran, China, and Gaza (on a semi-detached basis), helped trigger another reorganization.
The Integrated Review Refresh 2023 confirmed the new directorate’s role in countering “hostile manipulation of information” by Russia, China, and Iran. Pryce and veteran teams were quietly integrated into the fresh civilian cover structure.
The internal structure of the Information Threats and Influence Directorate, 2023.
Inside ITID: The FCDO’s Rebadged Propaganda Hub
The Information Threats and Influence Directorate (ITID), created March 2023 under Director Jonny Hall, is the FCDO’s central unit for countering “hostile information manipulation”.
Leaked FCDO intranet charts show two deputy directors: Rachael Goodwill (Counter Information Manipulation) and Owen Bassett (Government Information Cell – Campaigns). Bassett previously ran the Counter-Daesh Coalition Communication Cell. Goodwill, meanwhile had previously been Head of the Syria External Team in charge of covert ops pushing for regime change in Syria.
A semi-detached Israel/Gaza Team (labelled xITID) delivers early C-FIMI (Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference) support, with Gaza concerns explicitly including Iranian angles. It reports to the director.
Abigail Cullen was named as lead of both the Gaza team and the China and Iran desk, which develops “proactive campaign approach with China Dept/MENAD and Comms Dir”. Cullen’s public LinkedIn profile omits ITID, naming only the larger directorate general, which is called Defense and Intelligence. Andy Pryce is listed as heading Threat Mitigation; Catherine Hunt co-leads Analysis and Insight.
Abigail Cullen is rather modest about her involvement in a secret info war operation.
ITID Exposed: FSB Expels British Diplomats and Forces Rebrand
However, in 2024, the Information Threats and Influence Directorate’s cover was blown. On September 13 of that year, the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, declared six British diplomats persona non grata, accusing them of espionage and subversive activities aimed at inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia. The FSB stated their actions showed “signs of intelligence and subversive work” and linked them to the FCDO’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate (EECAD) and to the HMG Russia Unit.
The screengrabs of the FCDO Intranet appeared online in Russian news media sourced to the FSB. The FSB also published a variety of other materials including covert surveillance footage of the ostensibly innocent British diplomats meeting Russian opposition figures, in what appear to be handler/agent relationships. In addition, there is further material on HMG Russia Unit, including a document that appears to have been produced by the FSB which included the names, email addresses and sometimes phone numbers and even home addresses of scores of alleged HMG Russia Unit officials. The document claims that all of these officials are from intelligence agencies including MI6, MI5, GCHQ, Defense Intelligence (in the Ministry of Defense) and the Joint Intelligence Organization (in the Cabinet Office), in other words, almost all British intelligence agencies. The document also claims that MI5 operatives in the unit use cover email addresses from the Ministry of Defense to disguise themselves.
Could any of this be true? Is it possible, as the FSB claims, that five separate British intelligence agencies are involved in the unit? The answer is, technically, no. In fact, there are more; at least seven British intelligence agencies are involved in the unit, according to official British sources. Hidden in plain sight in a throwaway line in a report from July 2020 by the Intelligence and Security Committee is a discussion of HMG Russia Unit. It states that responsibility for the government’s Russia strategy falls:
“To the National Security Strategy Implementation Group for Russia, which …is co-ordinated by the HMG Russia Unit… All seven organisations that we oversee are represented in the Implementation Group.”
The seven groups referred to are MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the Joint Intelligence Organization (JIO), and the National Security Secretariat (NSS) both in the Cabinet Office; Defense Intelligence (DI) in the Ministry of Defense; and the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT) in the Home Office. So, as we can see, the FSB had somewhat underestimated the extent of British intelligence agencies involvement in HMG Russia Unit.
In response to the cover of ITID being blown, the FCDO restructured again. In late 2024/early 2025 ITID became the Cyber, Information and Tech Threats Directorate (CITTD). By early 2026 it was rebranded yet again to the Hybrid Threats Directorate. At the end of March this year the foreign Affairs Committee showed that it had been misled by the FCDO when it recommended that the government “increase funding and staffing within the Hybrid Threats Directorate”. The Foreign Office had, naturally, neglected to mention that this was a covert intelligence operation in its formal evidence to the inquiry. There is also a certain irony in the fact that the Chair of the committee at present is Emily Thornberry MP – the very same person who in January 2017 called for an inquiry into the Israel lobby and one year later did the same for the Integrity Initiative.
Escalating the War on the Islamic Republic: ITID’s Successors in the Propaganda Frontline
As the U.K. has stepped up its information offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the role of the FCDO’s rebranded propaganda unit has come under fresh scrutiny. In March 2026 Lord Walney released his report, “Undue Influence,” accusing the Iranian regime of building a network of over thirty U.K. charities and Shia Muslim groups as “soft power” vehicles linked to the IRGC. The document has been weaponized to intensify calls for proscription of the IRGC.
MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum has repeatedly stated that British security agencies have disrupted more than twenty potentially lethal Iran-backed plots on U.K. soil. Mossad has frequently claimed it has tipped of Western intelligence agencies about such alleged “plots.”
Even the 23 March 2026 arson attack on four Hatzolah ambulances in Golders Green — widely reported as an antisemitic incident — triggered immediate claims of a Zionist false flag. While three individuals were later charged, the speed and coordination of the subsequent information campaign cannot rule out involvement by the FCDO’s specialist disinformation experts. Even more recently a recently discharged psychiatric patient, with a history of violence stretching back almost twenty years, who allegedly stabbed two Jews in Golders Green, has now been recruited via credulous and ideological Zionist and state responses to the global “antisemitism” panic. Almost all commentators ignored the Muslim he had allegedly stabbed earlier in the day. Facts don’t matter: Jewish supremacist demands must be enforced.
With the semi-detached Israel/Gaza Team (xITID) and Abigail Cullen leading both the Gaza and Iran desks (at least in 2023), the unit is structured to shape narratives across multiple theaters at once.
The Information Threats and Influence Directorate (ITID) — and its successors — sit at the center of these operations. Leaked FCDO charts show the unit running “counter foreign information manipulation and interference” (C-FIMI) campaigns explicitly targeting Iran.
The pattern is unmistakable: every time this MI6-directed propaganda operation is exposed, it is simply rebadged and relaunched, always with expanded targets. The Islamic Republic is now firmly in its sights. And more and more repressive attacks on Shia Muslims, Palestinians and all who support them are in the works.
