Britain must present a hard and clear response to Russia

Crime scene: Amber Rudd at the shopping centre where the Skripals were found
REUTERS

A few years ago, I worked with Markus Wolf on his memoirs, recounting his days as the East German spymaster throughout the Cold War. One of the stories he retold in detail was the 1962 swap of the Soviet agent Rudolf Abel for the U2 pilot Gary Powers. The point of the exchange, told through the eyes of Wolf as a rising intelligence officer, was to break one of the impasses that would inevitably arise in the clash of superpower ideologies.

It laid the groundwork for multi-sided swaps which continued throughout the Cold War and provided a means of decompression: vital at times of high tension and often the key to re-setting relations. The manoeuvre was revived when rookie agent, Anna Chapman, was arrested in 2010 and convicted in the US. Sergei Skripal, a retired KGB double agent, was part of the subsequent exchange of agents that allowed her to return to Moscow.

The attack on Skripal and his daughter is an extraordinary codicil to this, not only because of its brutality, but because in all probability (the nature of the nerve agent and its origins) it happened directly at the behest or with the turning of a blind eye from those in the deep Russian state who are not in the habit of allowing careless accidents to happen when it comes to weaponised nerve agents.

Consider too that, as in the killing of Aleksandr Litvinenko in 2006, there is no sign of shock or remorse nor any desire to help find the truth. Instead, there is a fog of obfuscation. If still in doubt about where responsibility ultimately lies in such matters, ask who is protecting the would-be murderers. “Who is paying the pensions?” is a neat Russian phrase for underlining that what might look to the outsider like chaos is actually an organised, stratified chaos. Anyway, even if the “why blame Russia?” defence worked, at a threadbare level, for the Litvinenko killing, it does look more than coincidental to have (at least) two poisonings of a spy and activist on English soil.

So May’s clear tone in telling the Commons that this is either a direct attack or one allowed to happen — with such callous indifference to the use of military-grade toxins — is right. And the Opposition leader is wrong and naïve at the same time to call for “dialogue”.

Anne McElvoy: 'The attack on Skripal probably happened directly at the behest or with the turning of a blind eye from those in the deep Russian state'

It is an evasive way for Jeremy Corbyn to say nothing about a subject where a future prime minister ought to say something, beyond point-scoring against wicked Tories. Taking money from donors with links to Russia as Mrs May implied they would has indeed been foolish and shortsighted — but it really is not the key point at issue when nerve agents are being used in Salisbury shopping centres. No, the broader problem for Britain is that it has danced on a pinhead in the wake of the killing of Litvinenko, with politicians, diplomats and big business all finding convenient ways to not do very much. The Magnitsky Act, passed under Obama, targets foreign government officials suspected of involvement in major fraud or human rights abuses. It has taken years of foot-dragging and, frankly, a blank lack of interest at Westminster to get the UK even to the point of considering a similar level of scrutiny.

Add to that a tardy inquiry into the death of Litvinenko and a hot-and-cold diplomacy of running the UK embassy in Moscow at times like a mere outpost of BP, followed by sudden segues into tough talk, most recently from Theresa May with her threat of cyber warfare.

London has sent a muddled and unsettled message and it needs to harden up. I do not think Boris Johnson deserved opprobrium for suggesting officials should not attend the World Cup in Moscow, if a link to Skripal’s death were established. It would look jolly odd from them to stand there cheering from the sidelines after this deadly farce. But a squeeze on unaccounted for money and tougher criteria for visas is the more meaningful pressure point.

A Britain that has risked looking don’t-careish about the mutual interdependency of the UK and Europe in the past couple of years now needs allies in this crisis. It should be forthright in calling on both its European security partners and its Nato allies to back a strong response. A slippery initial response from the White House was clearly toughened up overnight by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Just hours later, he was ousted from the White House, leaving us clueless as to where the US stands on Russia..

Countries with a shared understanding of the rules of civilised engagement should stand together

Anne McElvoy

It is Britain, with the US, Germany and Canada, that provides the Enhanced Forward Presence of defence for Eastern Europe and the Baltic states and pays its Nato dues, when others shirk them. What happened here last week can happen elsewhere in the West. Indeed, in other virtual theatres of micro warfare it already is happening. Germany has admitted that its foreign and defence ministries fell victim to a cybersecurity breach, reportedly carried out by Russian hacking group.

These are moments when countries with a shared understanding of the rules of civilised engagement should stand together. Picking on the weaknesses of individual countries — a Britain shaken by Brexit, a US system trying to accommodate and constrain the vagaries of Donald Trump — is its hallmark. So close the loopholes left open to the exploitation of London’s lax hospitality by unaccountable foreign wealth. Underline a united front in sanctions and security measures. Most of all, do not get into what Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, has rightly called as the “childish” games of words deployed to distract attention from a serious attack.

But remember too that this saga is thoroughly distressing to the many honest, clever Russians who have made their homes in London and deepened ties between two countries who have a profound affinity for each other. I say this as someone who has loved living and working in Russia and still relishes its culture and quirks, to the point of re-watching Russian TV’s veteran Sherlock series. In this case though, there is not much to be gained by failing to point out who is Moriarty.

Anne McElvoy is Senior Editor at The Economist and a former Moscow correspondent