Russian Media Critical but Not Hysterical About UK’s Moves Over Lugovoy

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s Commons statement on the Litvinenko affair and his announcement of measures in response to Russia’s refusal to extradite the main suspect, Andrey Lugovoy, predictably, came in from criticism on Russian TV’s main bulletins on the evening of 16 July. However, this criticism was not particularly harsh by the standards of the country’s state- controlled media.

Miliband’s statement to the House of Commons and his answers to questions from MPs were broadcast live on the state-owned 24-hour news channel, Vesti. This was followed by a series of hard-hitting comments by Russian pundits and politicians whose opinions are customarily in tune with official thinking.

First up, the chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev, told Vesti that the UK was treating Russia like “some kind of banana republic” in the way it had handled the Litvinenko affair. Kosachev’s comments made no overt reference to Miliband’s statement, and they may have been made prior to it. Later in the evening, he told the same channel that Russia’s response to the expulsion of its diplomats and the changes to visa arrangements should be “symmetrical, equal and, of course, speedy”.

Vesti followed the first interview with Kosachev with comments from the chairman of the State Duma committee on CIS affairs and Relations with Compatriots, Andrey Kokoshin. Kokoshin called for “retaliatory sanctions” against the UK, and warned that Britain would come off worse in the dispute. He laughed at the idea that Russia should change its Constitution to allow for the extradition of Lugovoy, and bluntly said that the British “will have to be content in the end with what Russia offers”. The One Russian MP also made a point of lumping the UK together with Poland, as a country that acts as a “Trojan horse” for US interests in the EU.

The final contributor in the series of interviews immediately in the wake of Miliband’s statement was the president of the Politika Foundation, Vyacheslav Nikonov, who told Vesti that the measures outlined by Miliband were “to a large degree inevitable” in view of the way that the British authorities had “from the very beginning regarded it [the Litvinenko affair] as a political case and had seen the hand of Moscow in it”. He concluded by predicting that the UK would eventually be forced into an embarrassing climb-down. ” Later,” he said, “the ruling circles in Great Britain will have to make a big effort to go back to constructive cooperation and for the current members of the British government this won’t be easy.”

Rossiya: economic angle

Just as Nikonov was delivering these remarks, the official channel Rossiya was preparing to go to air with its main news bulletin of the evening. Like all the other main channels, it led with the reaction to Miliband’s statement. However, comment on the channel was rather less hostile than that voiced by the pundits on Vesti.

The initial correspondent’s report described the UK Foreign Secretary’s statement as “tough”, but it also drew attention to his opening remarks on the importance of the UK’s relationship with Russia. The lack of any intention to stir up anti-British feeling was also evident in the fact that the presenter pointed out that the visa restrictions announced by Miliband would only apply to Russian officials and not tourists. These remarks were in step with a contribution from the ubiquitous Kosachev, who told Russia that “there is no need to get into a panic, or for us to react excessively to the actions of the British”.

The main thrust of Rossiya’s analysis of the situation was that British businesses in Russia stand to be the main losers in any diplomatic confrontation between the two countries. It said that Tony Blair had attempted to persuade British companies to abandon Russian markets on the eve of the recent G8 summit, but had been met with a rebuff. The correspondent went on to highlight the extent of British commercial involvement in Russia, including the recent investment plans announced by the Kingfisher Group. He also talked to the head of the Moscow branch of the Russian-British Chamber of Commerce, Neil Cooper, who warned against measures that could harm business.

The economic aspect of the affair was also the focus of comment in the Russian press on 16 July. The state-owned daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta quoted sources in the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying “that London and Moscow would try to minimize possible negative repercussions for Russian-British trade and economic relations, which have so far developed well.”"It appears that Russia and Great Britain have something to lose,” the paper concluded. For its part, the liberal daily Novyye Izvestiya suggested that Britain had not resorted to the strongest possible measures over the Litvinenko affair out of economic considerations. “Sensible pragmatic attitudes,” the paper observed, “do not involve killing ‘the chicken laying golden eggs’, that is, the present level of the economic relations between Russia and Great Britain.”

Channel One attacks UK’s extradition record

The main suspect in the Litvinenko case, Andrey Lugovoy, was notable by his absence from bulletins on Rossiya on the 16 July. However, he did feature on state-controlled Channel One, telling the station by telephone that the changes against him were “politically motivated”.

Another difference between the two channels was in their analyses of the diplomatic row between the two countries. Whereas Rossiya had focused on the economic implications of the dispute, Channel One attacked Britain’s record on extradition, reciting a long list of fugitives from justice in foreign countries, mainly Islamic extremists, whom Britain has at one time or another refused to extradite. These included Abu Hamza, Algerian national Lafti Raissi, wanted by the USA in connection with the 9/11 attacks, and Rashid Ramda, another Algerian, wanted by France. The channel recognized that extradition decisions were made by the courts and not politicians, though it hinted that political considerations could play a part in the process. It also featured George Galloway MP accusing the UK of “double standards” in its extradition policy, and questioning whether Russian exiles Boris Berezovskiy and Akhmed Zakayev would be “walking around Piccadilly” if they were Saudi citizens.

A similar review of the UK’s extradition record appeared just moments after Miliband’s statement on the ITAR-TASS news agency. It was also referred to in the statement by Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin, who stressed that the “provocative” actions of the British authorities and their “amoral” stance on the issue “will not go unanswered”. Kamynin’s statement, or extracts from it, featured in all the main bulletins after 1600 gmt.

NTV and Ren TV

Gazprom-owned NTV, the third main federal channel, provided a rather sympathetic review of Miliband’s Commons performance. It described how he began by speaking about the strength of Russia before moving “in the same polite and diplomatic style to announcing the punishment”. Unlike the state channels, NTV quoted the minister’s concern that the crime allegedly committed by Lugovoy “put at risk the health of many British people, who could have fallen victim to radiation poisoning”. The report went on to note Gordon Brown’s response to the “first international controversy of his premiership”, quoting his press service’s insistence that the expulsion of diplomats “will not affect economic ties between the two countries and will not result in a return to the Cold War”.

Brown’s response to the row was also the subject of a commentary by Vasiliy Sergeyev on the liberal website Gazeta.ru. “Gordon Brown,” wrote Sergeyev, “clearly demonstrated his toughness and resolve in saying that London will not apologize for the expulsion of the Russian diplomats. At the same time, Tony Blair’s successor sent a signal to Moscow about his readiness for a constructive dialogue and even about the possibility of reversing the situation. Brown said that he is striving for good relations with Russia, though in order to bring this about Moscow should help to bring the British investigation into the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko to a conclusion.”

Russia’s only mainstream TV station that regularly flouts the Kremlin line, Ren TV, described Miliband’s statement as “new twist in the diplomatic war” between the UK and Russia. However, like Rossiya, it informed viewers that they were not likely to fall foul of the visa restrictions announced by the UK. “The most interesting thing,” said the correspondent, “is that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office is not apparently intending to use the polonium affair to get at Russian people. The only people who will find it difficult to enter the UK are Russian officials, and only if they are on official business. We have seen this sort of thing before in the case of Belarusian bureaucrats… If this situation is the same as that one, then [Interior Minister] Rashid Nurgaliyev, [FSB director] Nikolay Patrushev and [State Duma speaker] Boris Gryzlov could have problems going to the UK, but not tourists or businessmen like Andrey Lugovoy who visited the banks of the Thames last autumn”.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.