Putin says foreign spy services seeking to affect social processes in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday intelligence services from abroad were seeking to affect social processes in Russia, TASS reports.

"They're conducting operations to wield impact on the internal political and social processes in this country," has said at a meeting at the headquarters of Russia's External Intelligence Service where he had come to congratulate the officers on the 95th anniversary since the foundation of illegal intelligence.

Putin also said that a number of foreign spy services provide immediate support to extremist and terrorist groupings in order to destabilize the regions adjoining the Russian border.

"You know perfectly the kind of challenges Russia has to grapple with," he said at the meeting.

"You also know they (foreign spy services) use terrorist and extremist groupings as instruments," Putin said. "Some of the grouping get direct assistance from the intelligences agencies of a number of countries."