The UK’s response to the Litvinenko murder: ‘late, lame and lamentable’
The roots of this UK policy failure stretch back to 2006. In November of that year Aleksandr Litvinenko, another former Russian spy who had become a UK citizen, died in London, having been poisoned with radioactive polonium some three weeks earlier. By the time of Litvinenko’s death, the two prime suspects in the crime, Russian nationals Andrey Lugovoi and Dimitry Kovtun, had fled back to Moscow, although UK law enforcement agencies were on their trail. For several months, the murder inquiry sought to identify what had happened and why, but attempts to engage the Russian authorities made little progress. Russian officials obstructed the investigation, blocking requests for information, delaying and complicating the efforts of UK police officers to interview the suspects in Moscow. Meanwhile, the Russian media sent out clouds of disinformation designed to mislead and confuse. In May 2007 the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) requested the extradition of Lugovoi to stand trial for murder.5 The request was denied by the Russian authorities, who referred to a provision in the country’s constitution prohibiting the extradition of Russian citizens. Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned Russia’s refusal as ‘intolerable’.6
In response to Russia’s refusal to extradite Lugovoi, the UK government expelled four Russian diplomats, understood to be intelligence officers, from Russia’s embassy in London. It launched an internal review of cooperation with Russia, suspended negotiations for a bilateral visa-facilitation agreement, and tightened other visa arrangements (for example, introducing closer scrutiny of visa applications by visiting Russian officials). The UK also held discussions with its European partners about the need for EU–Russian relations to take account of UK concerns arising from the Litvinenko affair, although the EU’s somewhat tepid response fell short of its hopes. Finally, official contact with Russia’s security service, the FSB, was suspended, on the grounds that the UK authorities believed that the FSB had been involved in Litvinenko’s murder.
Speaking in the House of Commons on 16 July 2007, Foreign Secretary David Miliband termed Russia’s refusal to extradite Lugovoi ‘extremely disappointing’. Its unwillingness to work with the UK to address the constitutional block to extradition suggested a failure ‘to register either how seriously we treat this case, or the seriousness of the issues involved’. He set out the objectives that the UK’s actions were intended to achieve: to advance the judicial process and to bring Litvinenko’s killer(s) to justice; to ‘bring home to the Russian government the consequences of their failure to co-operate’ with the criminal investigation and the extradition request; and to emphasize the UK’s ‘commitment to protecting the safety of British citizens and visitors’. Underlining this last point, Miliband said that the government’s response took account of the fact that Litvinenko’s killers had put the lives of many others at risk. It was also a signal of the authorities’ determination to protect the Russian community living in the UK.
At the same time, the government sought to strike a balance between punishing Russia to deter it from further attacks and maintaining cooperative relations. Miliband described Russia as ‘a key international partner for the United Kingdom’. The UK wanted to work with it over a range of important international issues. UK–Russia cultural exchange was extensive. Bilateral trade was ‘large and growing, including considerable benefits for the City of London’, while British companies were making ‘a major contribution to the Russian economy’.
The parliamentary debate that followed his statement showed cross-party support for the government’s approach, which was generally seen as firm. Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague applauded ‘the tone and substance’ of Miliband’s remarks.7
Giving evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) two days after Miliband’s statement, the then minister of state for Europe, Jim Murphy, said that ‘our relationships with Russia are strong’. He mentioned ‘the mutual benefit of economic co-operation’ and ‘shared interests in a number of international issues’. The murder of Litvinenko was, however, ‘a dreadful crime’. The Russian authorities had not treated UK concerns ‘with the seriousness that they deserved’ and had not been sufficiently cooperative. The UK’s response to Russia’s refusal to extradite Lugovoi was ‘a considered, measured response, which we think is appropriate in these circumstances’.8 Less than a fortnight later, minister of state for energy Malcolm Wicks travelled to Russia on scheduled business, a visit that Murphy subsequently described to the FAC as ‘constructive’.9
In evidence to the FAC later in 2007, Miliband reiterated the dual nature of the UK’s Russia policy:
On the one hand, economic integration between the UK and Russia has never been greater. Economic links have never been greater. You could even make the case that quite a lot of cultural interchange is strong at the moment. However, we are not on the same page on some very serious diplomatic issues. We are in a very different situation. I am sure that I do not need to tell the Committee that the murder of Mr Litvinenko on London’s streets was an extremely serious event.10
This formulation summed up the Labour government’s approach to the Litvinenko murder. Despite problems and irritants in the relationship, which also reflected wider tensions between the leading Western powers and Russia, especially after the 2008 Russian–Georgian war, the UK evidently wanted to find a middle way between penalizing Russia and maintaining constructive ties with it, including in the economic domain. Russia was, for the UK government, a challenging interlocutor, but political difficulties should not be allowed to prevent necessary cooperation.
The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government that took office after the UK general election in 2010 adopted much the same stance. Emblematic of its outlook was the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), published that October. A document of some 75 pages, it contained two benign references to Russia. In the section ‘Alliances and Partnerships’, Paragraph 5.8 stated: ‘We will also look to increase bilateral cooperation with a wide range of other countries … we are building up our political and security dialogue with China, with Russia, and with fast-growing economies like Brazil and Indonesia.’11 Russia – a fellow permanent member of the UN Security Council and a member of the G8 group of industrialized nations – remained a ‘partner’ of the UK. In September 2011 Prime Minister David Cameron was asked in the House of Commons to report on his recent visit to Moscow. He said that the UK government’s position on the Litvinenko murder had not changed ‘one jot’. However, he added, ‘I do think it is right, at the same time, to try to build a better relationship with Russia across a whole range of issues’.12 Foul though it was, the Litvinenko murder should not obstruct strategic cooperation.
A second factor at work was commercial. To ensure that the UK recovered as quickly as possible from the financial crisis of 2008, the coalition government assigned an important role to economic diplomacy. One of three core objectives of foreign policy would be ‘increasing exports and investment, opening markets, ensuring access to resources, and promoting sustainable global growth’.13 Russia was not central to this ‘prosperity agenda’, but, inter alia as a member of the BRICS14 grouping (and because it was often, if mistakenly, seen as an emerging economy), it was of interest, particularly as a hydrocarbons producer. Russia might not be a top priority for the UK’s commercial diplomacy, but economic relations seemed to be in reasonable shape and on an upward trajectory despite political turbulence. BP’s announcement in 2012 that it would take a 19.75 per cent stake in Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft seemed to confirm a broadly positive trend.15
Another illustration of the importance that successive UK governments attached to the economic relationship with Russia was the Tier I (Investor) visa scheme. Introduced in February 2008 as a replacement for the Investor Immigrant route, Tier 1 was aimed at wealthy individuals from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland. In return for a commitment to invest £1 million (raised to £2 million in 2014) in UK government bonds, share capital or corporate bonds, applicants could seek to enter the UK for an initial period of three years and four months.16 According to research by Transparency International, between 2008 and April 2015, when tighter requirements were introduced, 3,048 Tier I (Investor) visas were issued, 706 (23.2 per cent) of these to Russians, bringing an estimated £3.2 billion (£729 million from Russians) into the UK.17 Although the Tier I programme was conceived as part of a wider effort to manage migration from non-EEA countries, commercial considerations played a role from the outset.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine, starting in 2014, came as a profound shock to UK official views of Russia. Policy hardened appreciably, manifested most notably in the UK’s support for the imposition of sanctions on Russia by the EU and the suspension of Russia from the G8. The new Conservative government’s 2015 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review, the successor to the 2010 SDSR, captured the turnaround in perceptions. Gone were the two largely positive references to Russia of the earlier version. Notably, the section on ‘The resurgence of state-based threats’, included in Chapter Three of the new edition, argued that ‘Russia has become more aggressive, authoritarian and nationalist, increasingly defining itself in opposition to the West’; and that the illegal annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine ‘have shown Russia’s willingness to undermine wider standards of cooperation in order to secure its perceived interests’. However, the review went on to note that Russia remained a permanent member of the UN Security Council. The UK would ‘seek ways of cooperating and engaging with Russia on a range of global security issues, such as the threat from ISIL’.18
Yet, as the Cameron government’s view of Russia shifted markedly, its stance on the Litvinenko murder barely shifted at all. In 2014 Home Secretary Theresa May had finally agreed to establish a public inquiry, headed by a senior judge, to investigate it.19 Based on a detailed examination of public and classified material, the inquiry report, issued in January 2016, confirmed the assessment of the police that Lugovoi and Kovtun had murdered Litvinenko. It also caused a sensation by concluding that President Putin and FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev had ‘probably’ sanctioned the killing.20
The UK official reaction to the findings was heavy on rhetoric but light on substance. May told the House of Commons that the government took the report ‘extremely seriously’. The probable involvement of the Russian state was ‘deeply disturbing’. This breached ‘the most fundamental tenets of international law and of civilised behaviour’. May recited the UK’s actions: the expulsion of intelligence officers, tighter visa arrangements for Russian officials, a police investigation that remained open, the issuing of Interpol notices and European arrest warrants for Lugovoi and Kovtun, and requests for the extradition of Lugovoi from Russia. The government, May continued, had always made its view known to the Russian authorities ‘in the strongest possible terms’. The protection of the UK from state threats was central to the mission of the UK security and intelligence services. The government would ‘make full use of the measures at [its] disposal’. The UK and its partners had imposed restrictive measures on Russian entities and individuals, including Patrushev, following Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Finally, the UK had written to its partners, drawing attention to the inquiry report ‘and the need to take steps to prevent such a murder being committed in their streets’.21
In contrast with the supportive tone of the Commons debate in 2007, this time many MPs criticized the government’s response as inadequate. Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham termed Litvinenko’s murder ‘an unparalleled act of state-sponsored terrorism’. He doubted that the government’s response went ‘anywhere near far enough’. ‘Indeed, it could send a dangerous signal to Russia that our response is too weak.’ MPs of all parties called for further retaliatory steps, including the imposition of economic sanctions on members of the Russian leadership.22 In the House of Lords, Lord Paddick dismissed the government’s position as ‘late, lame and lamentable’.23
The UK government did take one new step following the publication of the inquiry report: the freezing of the UK-based assets of Lugovoi and Kovtun under the 2001 Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act. (As far as is known, neither had substantial assets in the UK.) Moving the measure, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Harriett Baldwin described this measure as ‘a deterrent and a signal that this Government will not tolerate such activity on British soil’. Until the murder suspects were brought to trial, the freeze and the other measures taken by the UK would send ‘a clear message that we will defend our national security and rule of law’.24 The asset freeze was to be reviewed every two years. It was extended on 22 January 2018;25 the Salisbury attack took place less than six weeks later. The UK government’s actions had fallen short of its language. Its attempt at deterrence had failed.
5 In 2012 the CPS requested that Kovtun, similarly, be extradited to the UK to stand trial.
6 Daily Telegraph (2007), ‘Brown: ‘Hand over Litvinenko Suspect’’, 23 July 2007, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1558256/Brown-Hand-over-Litvinenko-murder-suspect.html (accessed 13 Oct. 2018).
7 Hansard, 16 July 2007.
8 House of Commons (2007), ‘Minutes of evidence taken before Foreign Affairs Committee. Global security: Russia’, Wednesday 18 July 2007, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmfaff/uc495-iii/uc49502.htm (accessed 21 Oct. 2018).
9 House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (2007), Global Security: Russia. Second Report of the Session, 2007-8, London: The Stationery Office Limited, p.50, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmfaff/51/51.pdf (accessed 13 Oct. 2018).
10 Ibid.
11 HM Government (2010), Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The strategic defence and security review, London: The Stationery Office Limited, p.61, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/62482/strategic-defence-security-review.pdf (accessed 13 Oct. 2018). The other reference to Russia, at p.51, stated: ‘We will also work with states and groupings of countries that use the most energy – for example, US, China, India, Russia and the EU – in support of actions that reduce their oil and gas demand.’
12 Hansard, 14 September 2011.
13 Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2010), ‘The Role of the FCO in UK Government. Written evidence from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’, https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmfaff/writev/fcogov/m12.htm (accessed 13 Oct. 2018).
14 Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
15 The BP–Rosneft deal was not universally good news. For BP, it was arguably less an investment and more a forced exit from its joint venture with its previous Russian partners. In the judgment of some, it carried as much risk as benefit.
16 See Tryfounidou, A. (2017), ‘Investment Residence in the UK: past and future’, Investment Migration Council, Investment Migration Policy Brief No.1/2017, https://investmentmigration.org/download/investment-residence-uk-past-future/ (accessed 13 Oct. 2018).
17 Transparency International (2015), Gold Rush: Investment visas and corrupt capital flows into the UK, pp. 10–12, Transparency International UK, https://transparency.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Golden-Visas-TI-UK-Gold-Rush.pdf (accessed 13 Oct. 2018).
18 HM Government (2015), National Security Strategy and Strategy Defence and Security Review 2015. A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom, p.18, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/478933/52309_Cm_9161_NSS_SD_Review_web_only.pdf (accessed 13 Oct. 2018).
19 The inquest into Litvinenko’s death had been adjourned in 2006 pending the continuation of the police investigation. In 2013, the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, proposed a public inquiry instead. The UK government objected, but in 2014 was overruled by the High Court, which asked it to reconsider. The announcement that an inquiry would be held came two days after Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine shot down a civilian aircraft, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17. See Harding, L. (2017), A Very Expensive Poison. The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia’s War with the West, London: Guardian Books, pp. 296–300 and 332.
20 The Litvinenko inquiry (2016), Report into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, 21 January 2016, London: Williams Lea Group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, p. 244, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493860/The-Litvinenko-Inquiry-H-C-695-web.pdf (accessed 13 Oct. 2018).
21 Hansard, 21 January 2016.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Hansard, 22 February 2016.
25 ‘The Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2018’, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/60/introduction/made (accessed 13 Oct. 2018).