Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

What Boris should do about a problem like Putin’s Russia

(Getty images)

With Brexit, the arrival of a new US administration, and trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the government’s foreign policy docket for 2021 will likely be pretty full, but in the odd spare moment, perhaps when he’s walking Dilyn, Boris might want to give some thought to his Russia policy. The great virtue is, after all, that there is pretty much nowhere to go but up.

Putin’s Russia is an antagonist, and although the threat is primarily through disinformation, espionage and subversion, the first necessity is a continued firm reaffirmation of the UK’s commitment to Nato. This is, after all, not just or even mainly as a source of common military defence, but a powerful statement of solidarity.

Solidarity should be the leitmotif, fitting in nicely with the new mood-music as we make nice to ‘our European neighbours.’ The intelligence services need to be properly funded and tasked, but also redoubling collaboration with partner agencies so we can maximise our common security. (And remind people that Britain is still a heavyweight in the intelligence world, after all.)

More broadly, after the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal in 2018, Britain was able to muster a coalition of 28 other countries to expel Russian spies in response. It was a salutary rebuke and certainly raised London’s standing in Russian eyes, even as they fulminated. (That’s a point to remember: the more they complain, the more consequent it generally means we are.)

One such setback was not going to make Moscow change its ways, as we have seen from the poisoning of Alexei Navalny last year and the murder of a Chechen in Berlin in 2019. At best, it made the Russians more leery of further such ‘wet work’ in the UK.

Instead, London needs to be at the forefront in creating future ‘coalitions of the frustrated,’ when next Moscow egregiously violates the etiquette of modern statecraft.

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