Plans for a happy London-Moscow honeymoon - complete with oil, oligarchs and thinly concealed odium at the podium - cannot move beyond the drunken reception. The awkward wedding party crashed Monday as the UK moved to expel four Russian diplomats. The reason: Moscow - in following the Russian constitution - has refused London's request to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the man UK officials say is Suspect No. 1 in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent.
In November, Litvinenko suffered a lingering, media-saturated death after being mysteriously exposed to polonium 210, a radioactive substance that turned up in various locations around the British capital.
Lugovoi has fiercely denied any involvement in the sensational murder, and told the Russia Today television channel in an exclusive interview that he even attempted to travel to the UK to plead his innocence.
"Earlier, I was ready to cooperate and fly to London. I only asked for an invitation. But they never sent a formal invitation in all these months. They contacted me once, in December, for formal questioning. And then all of a sudden I hear of this accusation without me being present there."
The British media has had no small hand in generating global hysteria against Russia in general and Mr. Lugovoi in particular. Even the mere suggestion that Lugovoi is innocent of this murder (there are, after all, many other criminal candidates in London - one of whom is publicly calling for the overthrow of Russia's "regime" - who had much to gain from Litvinenko's tragic demise) is glaringly absent from the screaming headlines.
The following quote from Monday's Financial Times summarizes the narrow spectrum of vapid views now circulating on High Street: "Russia's new belligerence demands a response that is both coherent and tough... Vladimir Putin's Russia is a diminished power that craves to recover superpower status. The Russian president wants to expunge the perceived humiliations of the 1990s and to deploy Russia's energy wealth to restore at least the illusion of superpower parity with the U.S...." What does any of this blabbering nonsense have to do with the Litvinenko case? If this were a court of law, instead of a media-generated circus, the judge would be pounding the gavel and demanding the prosecution stick to the subject.
Having lived in the Russian capital for almost a decade, I can say with some confidence that "restoration of empire" is not the primary preoccupation of the Russian people. That lofty ambition probably ranks slightly below a summer vacation in Turkey and buying a new Ford. After all, as the British learned firsthand, the glories of global empire are much more attractive in the history books than in reality.
Today, Russia is becoming a major player in the free market economy, and this seems to be a big part of the present problem. Russia's "new belligerence" refers more to its economic muscle than any desire for empire. Still, Russia's resurgence has taken many by surprise. Occasionally, this surprise is mixed with bitterness when Russian companies gain valuable interests at the expense of western companies.
In June, British Petroleum's majority share in the huge Kovykta field was taken over by state-owned Gazprom for a pittance; last year, Shell forfeited its majority stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project. The BBC reported the move on TNK-BP was "the latest example of the Kremlin forcing out Western energy firms."
Moreover, according to the latest Forbes report, the world must now share space with 53 Russian billionaires, up from 34 last year - who have a combined wealth of almost $300 billion. More irksome for outsiders, perhaps, is that these super-rich are relatively young (and, as Mikhail Prokhorov proved during his alleged sexcapades in the resort of Courchevel, occasionally immature too). The average New Russian ‘tike-coon' is just 46 years old, compared with a global average of 62. Russians forget that being filthy rich is forgivable only if you are old. The only reason Rupert Murdoch, for example, owns half of the western media is because he is 75 and ugly.
Although I can only speculate on such matters, I would guess that London's ‘underprivileged' millionaires are suffering from a nasty case of Russian yacht envy these days, to say nothing of Russian-owned soccer teams and Oxford Street spending sprees by svelte Slavic show wives.
Roman Abramovich, 41, a UK resident and owner of the Chelsea Football Club, would serve as the best example of ostentatious Russian wealth invading the UK. Other more controversial and less voluntary UK residents are Boris Berezovsky, the exiled oligarch who is dearly wanted back in Moscow, and Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen rebel.
All things considered, it is tempting to say that Russia's billionaires, together with about 1,000 ‘lower class' Russian millionaires, have overstayed their welcome in London. How else to explain the "megaphone diplomacy" that usually staid London is employing against Moscow? Clearly, this is a concerted effort to disparage Russia and payback for lost business.
But Russian cash would be better spent back home. After all, a poor oligarch needn't travel all the way to London these days to buy a Bentley.
By Robert Bridge
