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UK Relations with Russia

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which I assume has come from fairly close to Downing street itself. Of course it is important also to engage with the current President, but no one should be under any illusion as to who is really in charge in Russia. I was going to say that our Prime Minister has met President Medvedev at perhaps three different international summits in the past two years, but to the best of my knowledge, there have not been proper bilateral meetings at any of those summits. I shall go on to discuss the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in due course. Let us contrast our Prime Minister's approach with that of Barack Obama. The US President recently spent a whole two-day summit in Moscow, having long meetings with both Putin and Medvedev. In fact, with Medvedev, he spent an incredible 10 hours in face-to-face meetings. The President's top Russia adviser, Michael McFaul, said to reporters afterwards:""I dare you to find a summit that was so substantial, sustained. We hit all of the dimensions of the US-Russia relationship between the government and society, the security stuff, the arms control stuff, the nuclear proliferation stuff, food, health. I can't think of a summit which was more comprehensive."" By the way, the 10 hours that Obama spent with Medvedev is in sharp contrast to UK-US relations, with our Prime Minister's approaches for a short joint press conference with President Obama being spurned five times after the Prime Minister's deft handling of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, in August. No one is saying that all is perfect in US-Russia relations, but there is progress and there is dialogue. President Obama also took the opportunity in Moscow in July to spend almost a full day engaging with Russian civil society and business leaders, and he pressed especially for greater press freedom, which has been terribly eroded under Vladimir Putin in particular. A few days later, Medvedev flew to Munich for similarly extensive head-to-head talks with Angela Merkel. Der Spiegel pronounced: "Medvedev Charms Merkel at Munich Summit". To her credit and in contrast with the rather fawning approach of her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, Merkel raised various human rights cases, notably the recent murder of Russia-Chechen human rights activist, Natalya Estemirova. Merkel had previously raised with Putin crackdowns on peaceful demonstrators and other cases. Medvedev actually pronounced in Munich his deep shock at the Estemirova murder. He even called her a model for future generations. He said:""She deserves justice, because she defended our legal system"" and""I am sure the person who committed it"—" the murder—""will be punished."" It helps that Merkel speaks Russian well, but she at least shows what can be done with critical engagement. A new German-Russian energy agency was founded, and about 300 delegates from both sides participated in a wide-reaching civil society dialogue. Where is our Prime Minister in all this? The answer is, nowhere. My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), who is with us, attended the 70th anniversary commemoration of the outbreak of world war two at the Westerplatte outside Gdansk in Poland a few weeks ago. Also there were Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel. Our Prime Minister was also invited, but declined to go, it seems. It seems as though he is actively avoiding Putin, Medvedev and, indeed, anyone Russian. Perhaps the Prime Minister's boycott of Russia is deliberate. Perhaps it is a principled boycott, rather like our approach to someone such as Robert Mugabe. If so, it would be helpful if someone would say so, as if that is the case, no one knows about it and instead we just look weak and ineffectual. While Merkel fights for the likes of the family of Natalya Estemirova, and Obama promotes the rule of law, no one is there to bat for the likes of the widow of murdered British citizen, Alexander Litvinenko—whom I met last year—as we approach the third anniversary of her husband's death on 23 November 2006. While Obama generates headlines such as "Obama Resets Ties to Russia" and Merkel gets "Medvedev Charms Merkel", we have had a series of false starts in recent years. A headline in The Times in 2008 stated: "British-Russian relations in deep-freeze, as summit fails" with a photo of Medvedev holding his hand out to our Prime Minister, but our Prime Minister has his face turned directly to the ground and fails to notice the hand outstretched towards him. An article from the BBC in October 2008 was entitled "Mandelson urges end to Russia row". That was in preparation for Lord Mandelson's four-day visit, which also ended in failure. We now hear that the Foreign Secretary is to visit Russia, which I am sure we all welcome. Characteristically, however, the visit was announced by the Russians, not the Foreign Office. The Times of 3 October told us, "British relations with Russia thaw as David Miliband prepares visit", but I wonder whether we will ever see the thaw that the Government have promised. If we do, will it help to resolve the major outstanding issues in UK-Russia relations, which I will come to in a moment? Relations can thaw only if there is a face-to-face meeting between Vladimir Putin and the British Prime Minister. As I said, however, the Prime Minister has yet to meet the Russian Prime Minister, and he took four months to meet Dmitry Medvedev after his election in March 2008.