Now that Litvinenko's murder 'probably' points to Putin, what's next for British relations with Russia?

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Blame has been pinned unambiguously on the Russian state for the murder of the ex-KGB officer, but David Cameron seems to be doing little in response

 

Dealing with rogue states is easiest when they are weak and far away. A nuclear superpower on your doorstep with a penchant for murder is another matter.

That is the dilemma facing David Cameron in the wake of the inquiry into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, which published its report on Thursday.

Had the 2006 poisoning of Mr Litvenenko, an ex-KGB officer, gone as planned, it would have attracted little notice. Polonium is a rare and normally undetectable poison: it kills with alpha radiation, measurable only with highly specialised equipment.

Alexander Litvinenko in his hospital bed  Photo: PA

In the small community of Russian émigré dissidents in London, the message would have been clear: you are allowed to leave the motherland, but if you mount propaganda operations against the Kremlin, you will be killed.

MI6 would have been alarmed, too: Mr Litvenenko was on a modest monthly stipend in return for sharing his expertise into the overlap between high-level corruption and organised crime. From its Vauxhall Cross headquarters, the spy agency was mounting a joint investigation with Spanish intelligence, code-named Operation Vespa, into the Kremlin’s involvement in Russian gangsterdom in Spain.
Yet the mysterious death of a secret source would have not become a public scandal. It would not have led to the freezing of ties with the Russian security service, the FSB. And it would not have led to a public inquiry, with a report unambiguously pinning blame on the Russian state for the murder of a British citizen in the heart of London – in a way that exposed countless other people to radioactive contamination.
Only a last-minute hunch, to test Mr Litvinenko’s urine for alpha-radiation, gave the authorities an idea of what had really happened.
The Kremlin, Moscow, Russia  Photo: Alamy
The initial response in late 2006 was robust. Russian intelligence officers were expelled from London. Contact with the FSB was reduced to the bare minimum – over the Sochi Winter Olympics, for example.

But after that, Britain tried to get back to business as usual. The Blair-era honeymoon was over, but it was still deeply unfashionable to talk of containing, let alone confronting the Kremlin.
It was after the Litvinenko murder that I began writing my book The New Cold War. When it was published in 2008, it attracted acclaim from hawkish Russia-watchers, especially in eastern Europe. But the pinstriped consensus in London, Washington, Berlin and other capitals was that my book was alarmist nonsense.
Russia, the conventional wisdom maintained, was a capitalist country, albeit with some flaws. It had a pluralist political system, with elections, courts and institutions. Mr Putin was an unpleasant fellow, but he had brought stability to his country and restored national pride. We could do business with him – both commercial and diplomatic.
Those considerations far outweighed the anger felt about the murder of Mr Litvinenko. Although there was no doubt within our security and intelligence agencies that the Russian state was directly involved in the affair, it was more convenient for politicians to pretend otherwise. Moreover the chorus of Kremlin-lovers in the City, business and elsewhere had their own reasons to downplay the murder.
They helped push the exotic, distracting conspiracy theories swirled around the case. Mr Litvinenko, it was said, was hardly a hero. He hung out with dubious characters – indeed, he was financially dependent on Boris Berezovsky, the late Russian émigré tycoon. He was a marginal figure, a gadfly. If someone swatted him, too bad.
Mr Litvinenko is not the only person to pay with his life. Mr Putin’s time in power is peppered with unexplained, convenient deaths – in Russia and abroad. A year ago, my friend Boris Nemtsov, a leader of Russia’s beleagured opposition, was gunned down in one of the most heavily policed parts of Moscow, within a stone’s throw of the Kremlin.
Notable mysteries in this country include the British intelligence officer Gareth Williams – the “body in the bag” – who had been investigating Russian state cooperation with international organised crime. He was found dead in the bath of his MI6 safehouse in Pimlico. The investigation into his death has got nowhere, and reeks of a cover-up.
Alexander Perepilichny, who knew the details of a huge money-laundering scam involving corrupt senior Russian officials, was found dead near his Surrey home in 2012. The local police, shamefully, did not believe that his whistleblowing could have a bearing on his murder. It has now turned out that he had traces of a rare poison in his stomach. A full inquiry into that murder could have bring sensational revelations that would echo those surrounding Mr Litvinenko’s death.
Alexander Perepilichny collapsed and died outside his home on a high security estate in Weybridge, Surrey.
Despite official indifference and obfuscation, Marina Litvinenko, and her son Anatoly, have maintained an astonishing dignity and resolve. Whatever faults her husband had, his choice of spouse was admirable. Thanks to the admirable Ben Emmerson QC of Matrix Chambers, who offered his services free of charge, she was able to surmount the many legal obstacles which the authorities placed in the way of a full inquiry.
Whatever else may result from Sir Robert Owen’s report, it is at a minimum a triumphant vindication for the indomitable Mrs Litvinenko and her band of loyal allies.

"MI5 has said that the number of Russian spies operating in the UK has reached Soviet era levels, between 30 and 40 in all."

Now she is demanding that Britain respond to the report with tough sanctions against Russia. But here she is all too likely to be disappointed. The overwhelming (albeit mistaken) priority in Downing Street and the Foreign Office is to gain Russian support over Syria. Only the Kremlin, the thinking goes in London, Washington and other Western capitals, can help bring the Assad regime in Damascus to the negotiating table.
Russia knows this. It uses the carnage in Syria as a basis for nationalist tub-thumbing at home, and for diplomatic mischief abroad. It pretends to be a potential partner in the hope of extracting concessions. In truth, Kremlin ties to the murderous Syrian leadership are a prime cause of the war, not a potential solution.
To be fair, Britain’s policy towards Russia has changed substantially in recent years. We have strongly supported Nato’s tougher stance towards defending its vulnerable frontline states in Eastern Europe. Britain is going to send 1,000 troops to Poland (not least because Mr Cameron wants Polish support in his negotiations with the European Union). Britain has boosted its efforts, alone and with allies, to catch Russian spies. It has begun – belatedly but commendably – to get to grips with Russia’s propaganda offensive in the West.
Theresa May gave a stern-sounding statement in the Commons on Thursday, where she announced an asset freeze against the two men named by the inquiry as perpetrators of the murder: Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi.
Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi.  Photo: AP
But it hardly seems likely that these two men have any assets in the British financial system. They may be scoundrels, but they are not stupid.
Meanwhile, MI5 has said that the number of Russian spies operating in the UK has reached Soviet era levels, between 30 and 40 in all. Though they are presumably working hard to recruit sources, nobody gets prosecuted for cooperating with them.
Far more effective would be to investigate the tide of Russian dirty money which swills through the streets of the City. British banks, law firms, accountants and others have behaved with blatant, shameless greed in their dealings with Russia.
Our most important company, BP, is in bed with Rosneft, an oil company which is a loosely disguised arm of the Russian state. Its riches are based on theft: a fixed auction in which it picked up the most valuable assets of Yukos, once Russia’s foremost oil company.
Yukos was doomed when its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, publicly accused Mr Putin of corruption. The oilman went to jail, and his company was bankrupted in a series of financial show trials. Rosneft picked up the pieces for a pittance.
Former Russian oil tycoon and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky  Photo: CLEMENS BILAN/AFP/Getty Images
Yet the City of London saw nothing wrong in allowing Rosneft to list its shares in 2006 – only weeks before Mr Litvinenko was murdered. That was the equivalent of letting foreigners sell stolen property on the streets of London. Far from calling the police, our financiers queued up to take a cut.
Such behaviour does not just corrupt our own system. It sends a dreadful message to Russia, too. It makes the Russian leadership believe that our system is not essentially different from theirs. Money rules and might is right. We just disguise it better with a lot of talk about democracy and the rule of law.
Sir Robert Owen, with his formidable intellect and forensic questioning, epitomises the real strength of the British system. He has produced a flawless report: lucid, measured and convincing. Its devastating, irrefutable conclusion of state-sponsored murder is embarrassing to our government. One cannot imagine that happening in Russia.
Judicial integrity may be little consolation, though, as Britain’s political leadership wiggles away from actually doing anything in response to an astonishing, brazen crime by a country which believes – apparently rightly – that it can get away with murder.