MOSCOW, October 17. /TASS/. Foreign intelligence agencies are behind some fake news leaked to mass media and trotted out as evidence for complaints filed against Russia by Georgia and Ukraine to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Russia’s Plenipotentiary Representative to the ECHR and Deputy Justice Minister Mikhail Galperin told TASS.
"The total number of complaints against Russia, submitted by the governments of Georgia and Ukraine, comes to about ten," Galperin specified. "Given some signs, we understand that these countries, which are acting as the driving force in a standoff with Russia in the ECHR and other platforms, enjoy substantial support from other countries, including non-members of the Council of Europe," he stated.
"For example, with the assistance of foreign intelligence agencies and organizations tied to them, files are falsified on a large-scale basis and are then leaked to the media and social networks, and presented as evidence in courts," Galperin explained.
According to Russia’s envoy to the ECHR, neither the Georgian nor the Ukrainian authorities could have orchestrated this on their own. "Moreover, this effort has cost tens of millions of dollars," he explained.
Many experts believe that the Strasbourg court is not a platform for considering disputes between the states and should rather deal only with complaints by citizens over violations of their freedom. "However, at a certain stage the court got entangled in international conflicts, territorial disputes and diplomatic claims, and it could not or did not seek to counter this, and actually over the past years it has been encouraging filing clearly politically motivated complaints," Galperin pointed out.