Alexander Litvinenko report: How can we treat a brute like Vladimir Putin as our ally?

Russia has committed an unprovoked act of nuclear terrorism on British soil. So how can we possibly work with it in Syria?

The damning conclusions reached by the inquiry into the death of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko serves as yet another reminder of the brutal oppression Russia has experienced since Vladimir Putin came to power more than a decade ago.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued its usual, lame excuses, claiming the Kremlin had nothing to do with the murder"

Himself a former intelligence officer, Mr Putin has demonstrated time and again the brutal methods he is prepared to use to silence his critics.

According to the detailed inquiry report published today by Sir Robert Owen, the inquiry chairman, all the evidence suggests Mr Putin personally approved the outrageous plot to poison Mr Litvinenko with polonium-210, a form of nuclear material only found at Russian nuclear facilities.

The motive for what amounts to an unprovoked act of nuclear terrorism on the streets of London is that Mr Putin was angered by the personal “antagonism” he faced from the former Russian intelligence officer, who had sought asylum in Britain after exposing the corruption that is endemic in Putin’s Russia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued its usual, lame excuses, claiming the Kremlin had nothing to do with the murder, and that the British government is simply “politicising” what was essentially a criminal act.

But then Russian diplomats have no option but to follow the Kremlin’s line if they do not want to suffer a fate similar to that of Mr Litvinenko and the countless other Russian dissidents who have perished for opposing Mr Putin’s increasingly dictatorial rule.

 

One of the more high profile instances of Mr Putin’s violent treatment of his opponents took place in February last year when Boris Nemtsov was gunned down on a bridge outside the Kremlin for voicing his opposition to Mr Putin’s illegal meddling in Ukraine.

There are some in Whitehall who continue to argue that we should try to forge an alliance with Mr Putin, and work with him as a partner to resolve some of the world’s more intractable issues, such as the Syrian conflict.

But I fail to understand how we can possibly treat a leader who is prepared to indulge in acts of nuclear terrorism as someone – to use Margaret Thatcher’s famous remark about former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev – we can do business with.