Susan Dalgety: Is Scotland a pawn in Putin's plots?

The investigation into how Russia interfered in the 2016 US Presidential election reads like a cheap spy thriller.

Agents of Russian President Vladimir Putin are suspected of tampering in the US election; did they do the same in the Scottish independence referendum? (Picture: AFP/Getty)

Robert Mueller, the special investigator, has uncovered an army of keyboard warriors who invaded social media to spread anti-Clinton propaganda and promote Donald Trump. And there are more revelations to come.

There may even be a connection with the Brexit vote. The Leave campaign and Trump’s team used the same data company, Cambridge Analytica, which has long been accused of having links to Russia.

And both campaigns were big fans of Wikileaks, which has well-documented connections to Putin’s regime.

There have even been suggestions that UKIP’s former leader, Nigel Farage, could be drawn into the scandal over Russian interference in the US election.

This may, or may not, be true, but the question that bothers me is closer to home.

It is in Russia’s best interest to destabilise the West. Think the Cold War, only with Facebook not George Smiley.

Scotland leaving the UK would definitely cause more than a ripple through the corridors of global power.

After all, there are only a handful of countries with nuclear warheads on their territory.

Would Putin have dared interfere in the 2014 independence referendum?

Why did Sputnik, his propaganda arm, set up shop in Edinburgh, and not London?

And did Russia Today offer our former First Minister Alex Salmond his own TV show because of his superb broadcasting skills? I have no idea. But in the strange reality that is now our world, anything is possible.