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LSE: Public lectures and events
Spy Games and the Nature and State of the Russo-British Relationship
00:10:48
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- [00:02]
A
Hi, I'm Justin Guest, a doctoral student here in the Department of Government at the lse. With us today in the hot seat is a professor of Russian government and history, Dominik Levin, and he is here to discuss recent Russian spy games and the nature and state of the Russo British relationship. Thanks very much for being here, Professor. Let's get started. Do you believe that all these Russian spy games demonstrate that the irrationality of vengeance actually exists in international affairs today, or do you perceive that this was more of a rational act on behalf of the Russians in their own national interest?
- [00:40]
B
Well, you've asked a lot of questions which overlap with each other. It could be a perfectly rational act for the individuals or the organizations involved that might not at all have much to do with national interest as defined by God. I don't know precisely what was going on. If you're talking specifically about the Litvinenko case, which is the obvious case to bring up in the Russian context, I would tend to think it's unlikely that Putin himself, or what one might describe as the Russian state, were directly involved in this, if only because it doesn't seem to me to have been worthwhile from their point of view. But I don't know. It's perfectly obvious that Litvinenko himself was, you know, challenging a number of very powerful and ruthless individuals and organizations. So you can take your pick for who may have done him in.
- [01:35]
A
Well, speaking of Putin, the Russian president has attacked Britain's actions recently as, quote, a vestige of colonial thinking, unquote. But Russia's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoy Church. Do you believe that was more of a message to Russian dissidents and critics of the Kremlin than it was to British diplomats?
- [01:53]
B
There was never any chance that the Russians were going to extradite Lugovoy. After all, you know, they've asked the British to extradite people, and the British have said no. So the Foreign Office knew in advance that there was no chance of them extraditing? No, I mean, they're just making a point of principle. Of course, from the Russian government's perspective, they asked why the British should be, you know, giving protection and indeed, citizenship to these people. And if you put it within British terms, I mean, you know, if you go back to when Britain was fighting its sort of what you might describe as last colonial wars, MAU MAU in Kenya, for instance, in the 1950s, if some other state had given protection and then citizenship to some of these people, the British would have gone absolutely crazy. And there are parallels, actually, because although, you know, what the Russians have done in Chechnya is extremely ugly, I certainly don't think it's any uglier than what the British did in Kenya, which was very, very ugly indeed. But it was all hidden behind a polite facade of, you know, law and order and this and that, of course, flatly denied by governments at the time. And it was entirely true what the British said. MAU MAU was often extremely brutal. So, my God, are the Chechen, you know, forces which have fought the Russians in the last 10 years. So, I mean, I don't find any of the, you know, the arguments particularly surprising.
- [03:20]
A
More recently, Russia has accused Britain of, quote, unquote, politicizing the Litvinenko affair. If that was the case, what would Britain's wider political objectives be here?
- [03:30]
B
I don't think Britain was politicizing this case. I mean, you know, a man was murdered on the streets of London. The British government was bound to respond, particularly since, of course, the murder was staged in a way to achieve the absolute maximum publicity. In a sort of way, what happened to Litvinenko fitted into all the British stereotypes about Russia. All you needed, you know, to have added was that he should have been bumped off by some naked blonde model, you know, operating with all this kind of weird, you know, radioactive whatever. That's what surprises me. It doesn't surprise me very much that Litvinenko was murdered. He was, you know, taking a great many chances. One of my former PhD students was murdered, you know, in Moscow for doing less than Litvinenko did. It does slightly surprise me that somebody should have gone to these extraordinary lengths in the way they murdered him, which presumably, unless they were very naive, they must have known would bring absolute maximum publicity. Particularly since, fairly enough, the British public is completely hysterical at the moment about dirty bombs, you know, small scale weapons of mass destruction, all this kind of stuff. So that, to my mind, is the most puzzling aspect of all this. But I can't give you any answers on that. I don't know why they use this kind of method.
- [04:52]
A
Well, speaking of stereotypes of naked blondes, perhaps aside, the Economist magazine has written that this brouhaha reveals a gaping cultural gap divide between the United Kingdom and Russia. Do you believe that's true?
- [05:06]
B
Well, I think that's always been true. The expectations, you know, have differed really a long way back in history in many ways. And then on top of that, you add, you know, what's happened in the last 20 years. It's not just that you have a, you know, a long tradition of operating in this sort of way, you know, from elements near the Russian intelligence and security services, but that obviously, you know, the last 20 years have been a real roller coaster for Russia. Having said that, again, I mean, although there is a big cultural divide, you wouldn't necessarily be quite so sure about talking about completely different methods if you were looking at some of Britain's colonial, and particularly late colonial wars, you know, where a good deal of unofficial murder went on. In fact, certainly in the case of Kenya, a very great deal. And one could find many other examples as well. I think it's also partly a difference between Britain now and Britain in its era of collapsing empire. And possibly it's to do with the fact as well that Russia, after all, is right next to Chechnya, and it's much more difficult to disentangle the metropolis from what's going on in, you know, in these colonial counterinsurgences or whatever you want to call them. I suppose you could make a certain parallel with the British in Northern Ireland, but certainly there you would have to say that the British were more restrained by quite a long way.
- [06:42]
A
And do you believe that Russia's refusal to extradite Lugovoy will actually have a significant effect at this autumn's talks regarding the EU Russia partnership?
- [06:54]
B
I don't know is the honest answer to that. It will certainly not be the only issue. Anyway, there are holes range of more important issues as regards Russia's relationship with the eu. In some ways the most significant is the fact that the EU has taken in not just the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, but three former republics of the ussr. And that, of course, has all sorts of implications for the relations between the two. And there is the even bigger issue of Ukraine and its future coming up. All of that, frankly, puts the Litvinenko issue completely in the shade. It's unimportant in comparison. Unless. Unless, and this the outsider does not know there were such significant issues involved which are not being talked about on either side because they're to do with, you know, the intelligence services. But I doubt it. It seems to me that this is actually a relatively trivial issue.
- [07:56]
A
And in that spirit, let's put it all in perspective. You know, the headlines are sexy, the story is captivating, like a good novel. But as an expert familiar with the last 400 years of Russian history, do you believe that this will really hurt Russo British relationships in the long run?
- [08:12]
B
Not at all. I think, really, I mean, what has mattered is that, you know, the British put their. I don't know, money, if that's the way to say it. On Russia emerging as a sort of stable democracy, which it hasn't, and therefore that has caused some kind of setback to Anglo Russian relations. The British are a relatively harmless target for the Russians to have a kick at. They don't matter enough to, you know, really worry Moscow. The big issues, in many ways are the integration of the German, French, Central European economies with Russia. That, in the long term is very important indeed. As for Anglo Russian relations, or British Russian relations, in the end, with common sense on both sides, they're rooted in certain common interests, partly economic, but also. Actually, both sides share an interest in combating various forms of terror, not least Islamic terror. It's also the case that, you know, everybody has common interests in terms of a certain level of global stability. If you look at the emergence of China, the prospects of instability in East Asia, although the Russians are on the scene and were not, nobody is going to benefit from some kind of dramatic confrontation over the states of Taiwan. I mean, all these things are obvious. In comparison to that, Lipvinenko is obviously rather minor. What, of course is true is that it does point to something which is rather new in the British Russian relationship, and that is the existence of a Russian community in London, some of whom are exceptionally wealthy and have important and troublesome relationships with the Russian government. To get a sort of comparison of that, I suppose to some extent you could go back to imperial times, when the Russian government was sometimes annoyed at the British government for harbouring revolutionaries here. But actually it isn't a real parallel, because the Russians in London at the moment, or those few of them who are playing a political role and have a great deal of money, are much closer to the Russian ruling elite than was the case with emigres here before the revolution. Although.
- [10:41]
A
All right, thank you very much, Professor Levin. We appreciate your time. You are now off the hot seat and tune in again for the next version next month.