LONDON: Britain’s attempt to extradite a former Russian agent for the murder of an exile in London will be a stark test of East-West ties that appear to be reaching levels of mutual distrust rarely seen since the Cold War.
Moscow says its laws prevent it from handing over Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB agent who British police believe travelled to London last year and poisoned exile Alexander Litvinenko with the rare radioactive isotope Polonium.
The case illustrates with spy-novel detail the new conundrum Western countries face in dealing with their old Kremlin Cold War foe, which has risen in the past few years from bankruptcy to oil-rich assertiveness.
“The Litvinenko case is only one and a very small part of the whole process of the degradation of Russia's relationship with the West,” said Yuri Fedorov, of London's Chatham House think-tank.
“There is – maybe not a crisis – but a serious, substantial degradation with this relationship,” he said. “I wouldn't call it a new Cold War ... Maybe a cold peace.”
Britain is talking tough about its extradition request.
“No one should be under any doubt about the seriousness with which we regard this case. Murder is murder,” Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman said.
In turn, Moscow accuses London of sheltering fugitives, including tycoon Boris Berezovsky who has called for President Vladimir Putin's overthrow, and a Chechen rebel leader. British courts say they could not get a fair trial in Russia.
The extradition feuds come amid East-West arguments on a range of issues from missile defence to human rights, to a Russian ban on imports of Polish meat which has stymied efforts to agree a new Russia-EU partnership deal.
Regional disputes simmer over issues like Iran and Kosovo.
But underlying all discussion is the realisation that Western countries now depend overwhelmingly on Moscow to keep their lights on. According to the World Energy Council, Russia now supplies about 40 per cent of EU natural gas.
“The European political class and European top echelons are on the one hand in a panic about European energy dependence on Russia, and on the other hand they don't know how to overcome this dependence,” Fedorov said.
COLD WAR THROWBACK: If the story of the murdered ex-spy reads like a throwback to the Cold War – so too do the texts of some recent speeches by Putin, which astonished even those Western experts accustomed to the increasingly aggressive tone of Russian rhetoric.
This month Putin told crowds on Red Square that Russia had enemies “who show the same contempt for human life as in the time of the Third Reich and the same claims to world exclusiveness and diktat”.
Western leaders have responded sharply. US President George W. Bush said last week he had doubts about Putin's commitment to democracy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised Russia's treatment of democracy protesters.
On Monday, Blair told a business conference: “I think the important thing is to say to Russia, calmly but clearly, that if our relationship is to prosper then it can only be on the basis of shared values and shared principles.”
But the West's enormous investment in – and dependence on – Russia's giant oil and gas reserves puts a potentially huge economic price on any further deterioration in ties.
Britain's two largest companies, Shell and BP, both have tens of billions of dollars invested in Russia, and have seen their holdings come under threat from authorities in Moscow.
Russia's environment agency said on Monday BP's Russian joint venture could lose its rights to a giant Siberian gas field. Russia now supplies more BP oil than any other source.
Last year, Moscow forced Shell and Japanese partners to sell half of their $21.4 billion Sakhalin oil project to Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom. The consortium agreed last month to pay hundreds of millions more per year in dividends to Moscow.—Reuters
