in Smolensk Oblast and Pskov Oblast heading toward Belarusian border. In Conflict Intelligence Team assessment, these trucks could carry no less than 600 soldiers. Kremlin did not confirm the sending Russian troops to Belarus, said that events in Belarus did not yet warrant Russia’s military involvement and condemned alleged foreign interference in Belarus's affairs by Western countries against the backdrop of mass protests in Belarus. Hans van Baalen considered that Russian intervention in Belarus is already a fact. State-sponsored global public relations effort Shortly after the Beslan terror act in September 2004, Putin enhanced a Kremlin-sponsored program aimed at "improving Russia's image" abroad. According to an unnamed former Duma deputy, there existed a classified article in the RF federal budget that provided for financing measures to this purpose. One of the major projects of the program was the creation in 2005 of Russia Today—a rolling English-language TV news channel providing 24-hour news coverage, modeled on CNN. Towards its start-up budget, $30 million of public funds were allocated. A CBS News story on the launch of Russia Today quoted Boris Kagarlitsky as saying it was "very much a continuation of the old Soviet propaganda services". In 2007, Russia Today employed nearly 100 English-speaking special correspondents worldwide. Russia's deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin said in August 2008 in the context of the Russia-Georgia conflict: "Western media is a well-organized machine, which is showing only those pictures that fit in well with their thoughts. We find it very difficult to squeeze our opinion into the pages of their newspapers". Similar views were expressed by some Western commentators. William Dunbar, who was reporting then for Russia Today from Georgia, said he had not been on air since he mentioned Russian bombing of targets inside Georgia on 9 August 2008 and had to resign over what he claimed was biased coverage by the outlet. The public relations efforts notwithstanding, according to an opinion poll released in February 2009 by the BBC World Service, Russia's image around the world had taken a dramatic dive in 2008: forty-two percent of respondents said they had a "mainly negative" view of Russia, according to the poll, which surveyed more than 13,000 people in 21 countries in December and January. In June 2007, Vedomosti reported that the Kremlin had been intensifying its official lobbying activities in the United States since 2003, among other things hiring such companies as Hannaford Enterprises