THE British Ambassador to Russia was engulfed in controversy yesterday when members of a pro-Putin youth organisation disrupted his address to a conference of the Kremlin’s most ardent critics.

Anthony Brenton was halfway through his speech to the Other Russia conference in Moscow when two hecklers threw flyers and shouted nationalist slogans. Guards punched and kicked protesters before throwing them out of the hotel where the conference was being held. The hecklers told The Times that they were from the Eurasian Youth Union, a radical nationalist movement set up in 2005 to help to prevent a Ukrainian-style Orange Revolution in Russia.

“Britain wants stability in Russia, but it has chosen the wrong political orientation, as shown by the Ambassador’s presence,” Gennady Badrov, 26, said. Dozens of members of Nashi, another pro-Putin youth movement, protested outside the venue. The groups say that they are independent, but critics dismiss them as tools of the Kremlin.

The incident highlighted the tense political backdrop against which Tony Blair and other world leaders will meet President Putin for the G8 summit, starting in St Petersburg on Saturday. A Kremlin official said last month that it would regard Western officials’ attendance of yesterday’s conference as an unfriendly gesture.

The conference was organised by critics to focus attention on what they say is President Putin’s dubious democratic record. Its organisers included Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion, and Mikhail Kasyanov, the former Prime Minister, who has pledged to run for President in 2008.

“We are gathering together because we are united in our disagreement with the current political course of the Kremlin and united in our alarm for the present and future of our country,” they said in a statement.

Mr Kasparov accused the authorities of arresting and beating up 20 opposition activists to prevent them from travelling to Moscow for the meeting.

The meeting was also attended by Daniel Fried, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Barry Lowenkron, the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour. The Canadian Ambassador was also there. Mr Fried told reporters that it would be distressing if it was confirmed that opposition supporters had been blocked from attending. He said that his presence was part of the US Administration’s regular contacts with the Opposition and civil society, but Mr Brenton was the only Western official to address the conference.

He talked about the importance of civil society in a democracy — a sensitive topic given the “spy rock” scandal that engulfed the British Embassy in January. The Russian security service accused four Embassy employees of spying using a device hidden in a fake rock, and of illegally funding non-governmental organisations. Mr Brenton said that it was a misunderstanding that the Kremlin objected to his presence. “It’s certainly not an unfriendly act towards Russian authorities,” he said. “I came because we were invited and keen to support the evolution of civil society in Russia.”

But Mikhail Margelov, the head of the Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee, said: “It is sad that ambassadors seriously think that Other Russia is the real Russia.”

Times Recommends

• The Japanese Prime Minister is doomed: or is he?
• Brighton company 'involved in cyber attack'
• The art of survival: it’s all in the mind