U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinon said Washington does not give orders and tasks to Russian human rights organizations which receive American grants.
Russian human rights organizations have received an official reply from the U.S. State Department saying that they are not foreign spies. When Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed a bill about "foreign agents", the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) and "For Human rights" group wrote a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama, in the letter was a request to answer whether they were "agents of the USA" as they were receiving grants from American funds. On Friday the head of MHG, Lyudmila Alexeeva, and the "For human rights" group said they had received a response from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"I am satisfied," Alexeeva said."The letter clearly says that the funds who give grants to our organizations, do not interfere in our activity, do not give us any orders or tasks," Alexeeva said to Interfax news agency.

"All members of the Moscow Helsinki Group decided that they would not register as 'foreign agents.' We are not foreign agents, we cannot lie to anyone," Alexeeva added.

"In response to your specific question regarding whether NGO recipients of U.S. grants are 'agents' of the U.S. government, let me state categorically that we do not dictate your goals or direct your actions, nor do we have any desire to do so," Clinton wrote.

After receiving the letter from Clinton, Alexeeva said that she was "not going to reject foreign financing. That would only happen if I get my arms twisted," Alexeeva said.

Two months ago Vladimir Putin signed a controversial bill about non-government organizations according to which, foreign-funded political NGOs must declare themselves as 'foreign agents.'