Tempest in a Teapot

Tempest in a Teapot

Britain and Russia repeat

centuries-old cycle of conflict

The history of British-Russian relations was tumultuous even in the times of Ivan the Terrible, when diplomacy with Queen Elizabeth was marked by imprisonment of British couriers and misunderstandings that led the Russian tsar to call the queen “an ordinary damsel” who did not have full control of her kingdom. 

In the 20th century, the relationship between the two countries was lukewarm at best, even though Russia’s last empress, Alexandra Fyodorovna, was Queen Victoria’s granddaughter, and the family spoke English at home. It certainly did not help that Britain had a history of serving as a base for opponents of the ruling government, including dissident writer Alexander Hertzen, Vladimir Lenin, and Lev Gartman, who attempted to kill Alexander II. 

In 1971, a spy scandal ended with 105 Soviet diplomats being evicted from Britain. For its part, the USSR said “ta-ta” to 18 Brits. Similar rounds of diplomatic ping pong played out in 1985, 1994, and 1996.

The latest row between Britain and Russia developed after a Russian citizen, Andrei Lugovoy, was accused by Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service of poisoning defected ex-KGB officer Andrei Litvinenko (who held a British passport) with radioactive polonium-210. Britain called for Lugovoy’s extradition so as to try him for Litvinenko’s murder.

The present brouhaha is, like past diplomatic scuffles, mainly rhetorical, and has led to a historically modest expulsion of just four diplomats from both countries. But observers feel Britain and Russia locked horns because of legal murkiness and cultural misunderstandings. “Russia has never accepted that Britain’s refusal to extradite [Boris] Berezovsky was a legal rather than a political decision,” wrote The Economist, while “the British government’s view is clear. One of its citizens has been assassinated and the use of radioactive material made the crime a threat to national security.” Russia is adamant in its refusal to extradite Lugovoy. 

According to Andrei Mayorov, of Russia’s Prosecutor General Crime Unit, the materials and evidence provided by Britain are “insufficient.” But there is a more fundamental issue: Article 61 of the Russian Constitution forbids extradition of Russia citizens. As President Vladimir Putin elaborated:  “They don’t extradite people that hide on their territory [Berezovsky], including suspected terrorists [Akhmed Zakayev], while they impose expectations on other countries, including the appalling advice that Russia change its Constitution. Their brains should be changed, not our Constitution.” 

And so Britain and Russia have reached an impasse. Britain asserts that Russia has an obligation to extradite a material suspect in the polonium case, while Russian officials portray Britain’s stand as an attempt by Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s new government to use Putin as a bogeyman. As legal expert Sergei Zamoshkin told Izbrannoye newspaper, “There is no legal exit from this situation, only a political one. Lugovoy will never be handed over to Britain if he was carrying out orders of Russian special forces. Equally, Britain will never hand over case materials to a Russian court, since they don’t believe in our legal system. There has never been a situation like this before.”

– maria antonova