Full disclosure: I was interviewed for this piece, and actually, agree that the British government is sometimes disinclined to get too muscular on Russian cases. However, rather than some bizarre fear of war or “Britain’s large Russian population” — 28,000 nationals out of a population of 65 million, by the way, half as many as Canadians or Somalis — I suspect Britain’s government partly senses that conflict with Moscow is pointless, and partly that its allies would provide minimal support like they did after Britain took a stronger line following the 2006 assassination of Litvinenko in London.
The article conflates Russian gangsterdom and officialdom — yes, they connect, and one hand sometimes washes the other, but they are not quite the same — and rolls togetherrumour, innuendo, paranoia and serious reportage in one package that seems to be crying out for a film adaptation. Can it be true that Britain is especially unable or unwilling to prevent Russian death squads wandering at will? Is London really less competent and more supine than, say, Italy or Greece?
But so long as the foundations of the story are built on anonymous sources and open questions, it is hard to know how to judge it. In the absence of objective benchmarks, subjective expectations come to the fore. And here, of course, the Russians shine as the baddies of choice. Whether or not this is Cold War 2.0, the Russkies are undoubtedly reprising their greatest hits as the ubiquitous bad guys of the Western imagination.
