UK admits to deploying "spy rock" in Russia Vladimir Putin has been handed a propaganda gift, according to some analysts, after an admission that British embassy officials deployed a fake rock to spy on Russia. The confirmation by Tony Blair's former chief of staff has left Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6 examining the lessons from a rare public airing of one of its controversial operations. In an interview with the BBC, Jonathan Powell confirmed that British spies had been caught red handed more than five years ago in an operation which involved equipment being hidden inside a fake rock left in a Moscow park. In 2006, Russian state television broadcast footage that appeared to show four British officials placing or retrieving the fake rock, and exposed the sophisticated communications equipment inside the plastic boulder. Commentators said Mr Powell's admission could increase pressure on Russian NGOs just as they are coming under renewed fire. Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, has claimed the NGOs are being used by western powers to sponsor the wave of protests that have broken out over alleged vote fraud in December parliamentary elections, and the former president's planned return to power in elections in March. "In the current political situation, this admission [by Mr Powell] could be used as proof that Putin is right when he claims that foreign intelligence services are behind the protests," said Nikolai Petrov, analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Centre. If numbers fall at the next protest on February 4, then I think they will ratchet up this line to the full extent: that NGOs are receiving orders from the enemies of Russia to destabilise the country. Former prime minister Mr Blair declined to discuss the Russian allegations when in government, citing a long-standing policy not to comment on intelligence issues. However, Mr Powell told the BBC: "There's not much you can say, you can't really call up and say "I'm terribly sorry about that, it won't happen again." I mean, they had us bang to rights. Moscow said British officials and their Russia contacts had used pocket-sized computers to download data to and from a gadget hidden in the rock as they walked past it, a process which worked at a distance of up to 20 meters and took only one or two seconds. The 2006 incident damaged already tense relations between Russia and the UK. Relations between London and Moscow remain difficult today, mainly because of the failure of both sides to resolve issues relating to the murder in London in 2006 of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer, by polonium poisoning. Russia has never agreed to the extradition to the UK of the man wanted by British prosecutors for the murder while Britain has maintained a package of sanctions imposed in 2007. In its 2006 report, Russian TV identified the four people visiting the rock as mid-level embassy officials, including one who it said had authorised grants from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to Russian NGOs, including the Moscow Helsinki Group and the New Eurasia Foundation. State television on Tuesday night hit out at the new US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, with suggestions his agenda was to foment revolution in Russia by supporting opposition leaders. It targeted him for meeting with opposition figures on his second day of work.