Last May, Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia's security service and a friend of President Vladimir Putin, gave a speech in parliament dripping with cold war-style rhetoric. Non-governmental organisations, he warned, were plotting to destabilise Russia; many were fronts for foreign intelligence.

Russia's parliament this week gave legal form to Mr Patrushev's anxiety when it passed a bill that would make it difficult for many foreign NGOs, such as New York-based Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International, to continue operating in Russia. And it would force all NGOs, domestic and foreign, to register with a state commission with broad powers to investigate them and shut down any whose activities it disliked.