The British government knew that Russia would be compelled to amend its Constitution to comply with the extradition request. What kind of reaction did official London expect? Miliband said other countries had amended their constitutions to comply with the European extradition warrant. What he did not say was that these countries were EU members. Russia is not. Article 15 (Part IV) of the Russian Constitution states that "Whenever an international treaty the Russian Federation is signatory to sets the rules and procedures different from those specified by the acting legislation, the rules and procedures suggested by the international treaty prevail." Russia has bilateral extradition treaties with a lot of countries but Britain is not one of them. It is Britain that does not want any such treaties with Russia and not vice versa. It is Britain that denies Russia Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Zhukov, the people wanted in Russia for what is regarded as a crime under both Russian and British law.

The appeal of a free two-week holiday for young people in Russia’s regions, who have little money and few prospects, is easy to see. Many of those who spoke to The Times were idealistic and eager to build a better country.

American historian and diplomat George Kennan was greatly annoyed by the influence of public opinion on foreign policy. He wrote that public consensus in the United States can only be achieved if the foreign policy course is based on primitive slogans and ideologized hurrah-patriotism. That statement holds true for any country. What's happening between Russia and the West is rapidly sliding into a confrontation of stereotypes. In the enthusiasm of their denunciations, some British commentators on the Lugovoi case are already approaching the heights of propaganda mastery displayed by "analytical" programs on Russian television. Revelations about Russia posing a greater danger to Europe than Islam or Osama bin Laden are mirrored by deep thoughts about the age-old Anglo-Saxon conspiracy against Russians. In this over-heated atmosphere, it's important to move away from the emotions. This crisis was inevitable, since schizophrenia cannot be maintained indefinitely. While officials in Moscow and Western capitals continued talking, by inertia, of "strategic partnership," common threats and challenges, and "zero-sum games"
being unacceptable, reality was taking a different turn: trust declining to zero, understanding of each other's motives disappearing.

We recently saw how Bush and Putin, having been on a track toward at least rhetorical confrontation, took advantage of the opportunity to pull back and tried to show that it’s possible to make some concrete progress on issues that matter to both sides.  The question is, will new presidents in each country have the same view, or will they also adopt a more contentious style? Will they
downgrade the relationship? I would think that a new president in Russia, who sees from just this year’s experience how easy it is to run Russian-American relations into the ground, will see this as maybe one area where he can actually do better than Putin.  Putin had a lobster dinner, but how much did he actually produce in the way of agreement? Hard to say, yet.  I think it’s entirely possible that the two new presidents will actually make an effort to improve the relationship not through family dinners and good feeling, but through concrete accords.  Now the question is, how easy is that going to be?  And the accumulation of disagreements, lately, makes that a real question mark.  On the other hand, when you’ve got this many disagreements piled up, you’ve got many different areas in which to make some headway.

Russian prosecutors insist they have good grounds for putting him on trial for his commercial activities; they have repeatedly called for his extradition. Each request has been rebuffed. The Kremlin, years before it started arguing that it is constitutionally prohibited from extraditing its citizens, sought a reciprocal relationship with London. It never happened. So it is unsurprising that Andrei Lugovoy, the principal suspect in the Litvinenko murder investigation, has not been delivered into British custody.

Vladimir Putin has not been getting good press in the United States or even Western Europe in the last year or so. He has been charged with being authoritarian, with attempting to recreate Russia's imperial control over its neighbors, and with reviving Cold War obstructionism in the United Nations. So one must ask, is this the only place where Putin has been exercising his charisma? The answer has to be no. There is, first of all, his internal political strength in Russia. Yes, he has upset a good portion of the intelligentsia, but there is every indication that he is quite popular with most Russians, unlike some other presidents of major states today. It seems that Russians see him as someone who has done much to restore the strength of the Russian state, after what they see as its humiliating deterioration during the Yeltsin era. In general, we know that what one person calls authoritarian tendencies another often calls the restitution of order. This is a conflict of interpretation that is widespread, even in the North Atlantic countries. Nicolas Sarkozy has just recently profited from this double perspective.

Britain and Russia  have been at odds since a former KGB spy died in London  last year, allegedly as the result of radioactive poisoning by a former colleague. The bad feelings have extended to business as well as politics. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France seems set on strengthening ties with Russia, unwilling to sacrifice the huge gains his country could make – particularly in energy – and is turning a blind eye to the problems across the English Channel and cozying up to Moscow. Other European nations are likely to follow suit.

It is commonplace that actions can have unintended consequences. Sometimes, however, the consequences of a particular action are all too predictable. When David Miliband, Britain's new foreign secretary, announced his decision to expel four Russian diplomats and suspend attempts to streamline visa procedures between the two countries, his audience in the House of Commons was already thinking of Moscow's reply. Elementary, my dear Watson! The sanctions with which Britain has chosen to express its irritation at Russia's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, charged with the poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, are certain to provoke a mirror-image response. By trying to punish Russia, Britain is punishing itself in equal measure. The British government is running the risk of doing much greater damage to itself than it may seem at first glance. Such absurd sanctions are bound to produce a negative effect on bilateral economic, trade and cultural relations.

That was also a time when Russians went from admiring the United States to resenting it, and not without cause. For all the moralizing about peace and democracy, the United States, and the West in general, made no effort to help Russia when it was down and instead seized the moment to expand NATO up to its borders and in many ways treated Russia as a defeated enemy.

To take matters as far as diplomatic expulsions - risking the diplomatic damage that goes with them - would seem to make sense only if Britain has grounds for believing that the Kremlin or Russia's security services had some direct involvement. While speculation has been plentiful and the knee-jerk response at the time - "Putin did it" - was repeated ad infinitum by Mr Berezovsky's propaganda machine - there may be other explanations. To many Russians, Mr Litvinenko was a turncoat; he was involved in unsavoury business deals. There were hints of money trouble. It is also hard to understand why the Kremlin should risk so much to extinguish an individual who was, by most accounts, low on its list of London-based irritants. It may be that British intelligence knows more than ministers have divulged. If not, then Mr Brown has consigned bilateral relations to the deep-freeze on what seems to be flimsy justification.