But We Do It Too

Simon Jenkins writes:

So now we know.

We have waited 10 years to be told that the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, is an unprincipled thug. He gets his minions to rub out his enemies and traitors, such as Alexander Litvinenko, even when they are living abroad.

Holding interminable inquiries into “historical crimes” is the new bloodsport for the British legal classes. They dominate each evening’s news. 

A high court judge has sonorously intoned that Putin is not very nice. Real men drop drone bombs on their enemies in foreign parts; dastardly Russians poison cups of tea – and fail to wash the pot afterwards.

How to respond?

Great power relations conducted through official and unofficial channels in foreign capitals are a world unto themselves.

Diplomacy and espionage have shielded a multitude of malpractices down the ages, from money-laundering to murder. They seem a quasi-fictional miasma, unconnected to any genuine balance of interests.

In 1971 a massive clear-out of Soviet spies in London had little noticeable impact on Anglo-Soviet relations. Nor did the tit-for-tat expulsions at the time of Oleg Gordievsky’s defection in 1985.  It was a “game of spies”. 

The strangely mild reaction to the Litvinenko report from the home secretary, Theresa May, is certainly puzzling. A Commons rebuke and a summoning of the Russian ambassador (for “tea”?) in the Foreign Office is hardly retaliation.

Moscow’s reaction was one of hilarity. Surely we could send a drone over a Russian embassy somewhere and drop a note of protest?

The suspicion has to be that any action against London’s burgeoning and lucrative Russian population would not have been welcome to the Treasury and the City.

London’s booming supply of financial, educational and property services to migratory Russians must surely offer scope for retaliatory knuckle-rapping, if Britain’s self-esteem needs it.

What would be pointless would be to extend existing economic sanctions against Russia generally. As an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs argues, these have been “an outright failure”.

They have probably hurt the Russian people. But they have been costly to Europe, especially to the frontline states, and have bolstered Putin in his self-righteousness and siege economy, rewarding those closest to him.

Economic sanctions are virtue signalling. They demonstrate the imposer’s weakness not strength.

Handling Russia during the reign of its latest self-styled strongman needs patience and cunning, not the kneejerk of “more sanctions”. 

The killing of one’s enemies abroad is odious, be they in London or Syria.

But we do it too.