CHERIE BLAIR risked the wrath of the Kremlin yesterday when she offered a group of its fiercest critics free legal aid from her chambers to challenge a Russian law that restricts the work of NGOs.

The Prime Minister’s wife, a QC specialising in human rights, broke away from the final day of the G8 summit in St Petersburg to meet 19 prominent rights activists in a deliberate snub to the Kremlin.

Although it was technically a private meeting, Tony Blair made it clear before leaving St Petersburg yesterday that his wife was acting on his behalf. “The purpose of her visit is to show the importance we attach to these issues,” he said.

The meeting in itself was enough to infuriate President Putin, who has been anxious to prevent criticism of his democratic record overshadowing the summit in Russia’s debut year as host.

But Mrs Blair not only expressed her personal support for the groups — which accuse Mr Putin of trampling on civil rights and silencing the independent media — but she also offered to help them to launch a legal challenge to a law, approved by Mr Putin in January, that imposes draconian restrictions on NGOs in Russia.

“She asked whether we intended to challenge the law at the European Court of Human Rights,” Yuri Vdovin, the host of the meeting and deputy head of an NGO called Citizens’ Watch, said.

“She mentioned that the chambers where she works could help us if we don’t have the resources,” he said. “I think it’s going to be free . . . she knows she earns more than we do.”

Sasha Petrov, the deputy director of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch, joked: “I don’t think she came here to search for new business.”

The offer was particularly controversial in the light of the “spy rock” scandal in January, when Russia accused four British Embassy employees of illegally funding Russian NGOs.

The Kremlin says that the law is needed to prevent foreign governments using NGOs to foment a Ukranian-style Orange Revolution in Russia.

It declined to comment on Mrs Blair’s meeting, but Mr Putin expressed irritation last week after the British Ambassador addressed a meeting of opposition and rights activists in Moscow.

Mr Putin also embarrassed Mr Blair on Saturday by making a barbed comment about the Lord Levy scandal when asked about British criticism of his democratic credentials.

Mr Petrov said that the meeting with Mrs Blair had been arranged in April, when she met the head of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch in London.

She began the meeting yesterday by saying that she had informed the other leaders’ wives, including Lyudmila Putin, that she was going to meet some NGOs.

“I know the organisations here represent a broad spectrum of the kind of work civil society is doing in Russia — issues in relation to tolerance, to mutual respect and, of course, ensuring that the state fulfils its human rights obligations,” she said.

“As a human rights lawyer myself, I am really delighted to be able to come and hear something of your experience and to celebrate the work that you carry out,” she said.

“I believe passionately that civil society is very much a part of civilised society.”

Reporters were denied access to the rest of the meeting, and Mrs Blair’s only comments afterwards were that it had been very interesting. But participants said that she had expressed particular interest in the new law, under which NGOs must re-register with a new regulatory body that can shut them if it deems them a threat to national security.

Yuri Schmidt, a lawyer who defended Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon who is in jail, said that he had told Mrs Blair that Russia was not a democracy. “We have an authoritarian regime here,” he said. “There is no separation of powers. The Kremlin rules the country. The Duma is a rubber-stamp body and there is no real discussion there.”

Among the participants were representatives of the most famous human rights groups in Russia, including Memorial and the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers.

TRAIN TICKETS, SUICIDE BOMBERS AND PLAIN SPEAKING

• Fined £10 for travelling on a train without a ticket on her way to sit as a recorder at a Crown Court in January 2000
• Apologised in June 2002 after saying that young Palestinians had “no hope but to blow themselves up”
• On the eve of the 2004 US presidential election delivered a trenchant attack on President Bush over his policies on suspected terrorist prisoners and gay rights
• Criticised the Bush Administration in December 2002 for failing to join the International Criminal Court
• While Tony Blair was criticising judges for thwarting his attempts to deport extremists, gave a lecture in Malaysia urging the judiciary to stand up to the “hurly-burly of majoritarian politics” in the War on Terror
• Barred by Malaysia’s highest court from representing a local construction company

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