November 27, 2024 - 11:40am
When journalists scan the next Register of Members’ Interests to discover which ministers have accepted “freebie” trips abroad, they are unlikely to see a sojourn to Siberia on the list. Yesterday, the Kremlin released a list of 16 British Cabinet ministers forbidden from entering Russia as “punishment” for their “reckless policies” and “anti-Russia activities”.
Given the unlikelihood of Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner embarking upon a mini-break in Moscow, this measure is clearly yet another attempt by Russia to find the most visible methods of targeting Britain. Think back to last month’s chaotic scenes when a mob, apparently organised by the Russian security services, harassed senior British diplomats at a Moscow airport, or yesterday’s summoning of the British Ambassador over alleged spying by one of his diplomats, with the Kremlin even naming the suspect.
Lest these appear rarefied diplomatic disputes between the British Embassy in Moscow and its host nation, Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFadden this week warned of the threat the Kremlin poses to the UK as a whole through cyber attacks shutting down power grids, all in a bid to weaken British support for Ukraine.
So why is the UK such a target for Moscow? Some of the motivation behind the latest moves will undeniably be the necessity of presenting a robust public response to Ukraine’s use of Franco-British Storm Shadow missiles against military targets in Russia. Yet there are also longer-term reasons for Russian discontent. The UK has long served as an adopted homeland for those who have fallen out of favour with the Kremlin, including ex-spy Oleg Gordievsky, businessman Boris Berezovsky and oligarch-turned-oppositionist Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
That is before one turns to the UK’s leading role in aiding Ukraine, supplying Kyiv with NLAW anti-tank missiles and calling Moscow out for its invasion plot before the war began. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remarked last year, the UK extended its “helping hand when the world had not yet come to understand how to react”. The UK provision of weaponry, training and intelligence to Ukraine is likely viewed bitterly in the Kremlin not just as interference in its backyard and an obstacle to victory, but also as bearing indirect responsibility for the tens of thousands of young Russian lives claimed in this war.
As for why Moscow adopts such overtly harsh methods, the answer perhaps lies in the UK’s immunity to softer means. While Russia can strive to weaken support for Ukraine in other European capitals by funding and promoting pro-Moscow parties, there are no mainstream British political parties in favour of Russia or which advocate cutting aid to Ukraine. The closest British political life has is Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s occasional interventions on the topic, and even those provoke considerable controversy. Given the public and political consensus around supporting Kyiv, Moscow’s only hope of reducing support can be broad, brute-force techniques aimed at making the British electorate question whether assisting Ukraine is worth the cost.
Besides, there is little to lose in bullying the UK, which lacks the military heft of America and the solidarity enjoyed by EU member states. It further suits Russia’s geopolitical aims: in trying to strengthen its ties with the Global South to overcome sanctions and diplomatic isolation, Moscow has — with apparently no regard for irony — positioned itself as an anti-imperialist power. In this context, the Kremlin’s repeated references to the “British Empire” and public humiliation of UK diplomats help it appeal to both nationalistic elements at home and postcolonial audiences overseas.
It should therefore come as no surprise that the UK has made itself a target of Russia. In that light, the British Government must consider if it wants to bear the consequences of being an outlier on the continent, attracting the Kremlin’s wrath but lacking the military resources to intimidate it. Expect greater humiliation to come.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeWhat “humiliation” ?
Who cares about Putin’s tantrums. Just ignore them.
As for the nonsense about British colonialism. We were the country that peacefully dismantled our empire after WWII. Compare and contrast with Russia who are still desperately trying to cling on to theirs and refuse to face reality. if they have an inferiority complex when they look at the UK, it’s entirely deserved. And entirely of thier own making.
As I understand it, not being conversant in the primary sources and not speaking Russian, Russia has historically seen the United States as the continuation of British Policy by other means and not the other way around.
Thus the Russo-British rivalry in the Near East occupies an exaggerated position in the history and philosophy of Russian diplomacy and statecraft. This has also the regrettable effect of flattering the vanity of those in the Foreign Office and Cabinet who wish to play the patron of liberalism in the East with an army less than a tenth of the size of Russias.
My understanding is that Russia still has a thing about Britain still being a global power.
It seems they think we are somehow sitting behind the scenes pulling all the strings.
If only it were true
The current Russian leadership also has a real dislike of Britain – for example every time I have heard Lavrov speak about Britain in the last few years, he literally radiates hatred. I would be wary of this Russian leadership if they are pushed into a corner, because while they won’t fire nukes at the US, I wouldn’t put it past them to target the UK with ICBMs. In this type of situation having someone as low quality as Starmer and Lammy in charge and making decisions is bad news.
Surely you mean ‘low quality’? Although in Lammy’s case I grant you quantity may be the appropriate word,
Never mind the quality, feel the width, eh?
Sorry yes of course – corrected now!
Yes, let’s put all our energy eggs in the one electricity grid basket and wait for a cyber attack from Russia – or China, or Iran – to immobilise it.
I’m not sure Ed Millipede will interpret your post as intended. I don’t think he understands irony; a bit like Putin!
Agreed. It’s geostrategically inept to a degree that would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
I followed the article’s reference to the condemnation of Nigel Farage’s comments made on the BBC. Despite Nigel actually agreeing with his critics on the fundamental issue that Putin was wrong to invade the sovereign nation of Ukraine, his reminder of his statement 10 years ago, “We shouldn’t poke the bear” caused outrage. Are some so ‘pure’ that pragmatism can never have a say before backing theatening action against a nation we’re in no position to fight?
“The UK provision of weaponry, training and intelligence to Ukraine is likely viewed bitterly in the Kremlin not just as interference in its backyard and an obstacle to victory, but also as bearing indirect responsibility for the tens of thousands of young Russian lives claimed in this war”.
“Tens of thousands”?
Is this a Russian propaganda exercise Unherd?
“As of November 1, 2024, Russian combat losses amount to 696,410 troops, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
During the press conference on February 25, 2024, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also specified that a total of 180,000 Russians have been killed in Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. With people injured or missing, it is up to 500,000 troops.
https://war.ukraine.ua/faq/what-are-the-russian-death-toll-and-other-losses-in-ukraine/
And do you believe Hamas is honest in all its reports of Hamas and Israeli casualties? It is unherd of an army honestly reporting deaths etc.
And even IF it is about 180,000 Russian deaths that is still tens of thoussnds as it is not hundreds of thousands.
Not sure what the point of this article is. Stating the ‘bleeding obvious’?
The author overlooks the issue that probably rankles the most with the Russian leadership. Boris flying to Kiev in April 2022 to instruct Zelensky not to sign the peace deal that had been agreed in Turkey by both sides, and would have brought a ceasefire on considerably better terms than will be available to Ukraine today. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides in the intervening two and a half years which could have been avoided.
After reading the article, I said to myself exactly that: “ ok, so?”
Not this nonsense all over again.
It’s always the same, isn’t it ? Ukraine didn’t wait for our approval before deciding to resist the Russian invasion. And why would they ? Just because you don’t want Ukraine to have any independent agency doesn’t mean they don’t.
The casualities are all on Putin and Russia. They invaded in 2022 and caused all those. Any attempt to deny that is simply deflection.
So it was pure coincidence that Zelensky refused to sign the deal the day after Boris’ visit?
Not to forget giving the Russian army lots of experience and a much stronger tie to China, Iran, North Korea etc.
Good to be the right side of history and despite some pain resulting we are on this one.
Of course we have a weekly apologist for Putin article here on UnHerd with some utter tosh that we/NATO were to blame for his invasion and fact he’s a bullying Autocrat. You do wonder if his only means of weakening resolve is expelling some diplomats and stopping Ange boating down the Volga?
You’re not on the right side of history.
On the contrary. We’ve known since almost day one how this war will end, yet we have deliberately prolonged it at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives in order, we think, to fatally weaken the Russian state. In fact, we have strengthened the Russian state. You are as wrong about this as you were about Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya.
Your fantasy of defeating Russia in a ground war was no more realistic than those of Napoleon and Hitler – and at least they sent their own countrymen to die for it.
One does not have to be a ‘Putin apologist’ to be disgusted by the sheer cynicism of your position.
A pleasure to be on the same side again just for a change JW.
I disagree, however, about Ange (I’m asusming you do mean our esteemed deputy PM). A long, slow boating trip down the Volga for AR would be very welcome news for many of us.
Ha, well at least I gave you the chance to enjoy envisaging that scenario.
We weren’t to blame for Putin’s invasion but we were, partly, to blame for creating the situation where he either felt forced into it or felt it gave him a good excuse.
No. Categorically no we were not. People in these countries want to make their own choices and you are essentially suggesting that’s not something we should support.
As I’ve suggested to some others who’ve fallen for this argument, it’s Woke. Be careful as you are essentially aligning yourself with all those who decry western history and values, suggesting we are the evil in this world and to blame for such conflicts. Not bedfellows I would suggest you want to cozy up with.
It seems you’re the one who’s decrying western history since the fall of the Soviet Union. ‘Not one inch’,
Example Rock?
The UK is a historical enemy of Russia. So when they characteristically poodle to American neocons, they also add their own inflammatory spin, the British establishment. I think they see themselves as expert military advisors to such proxy wars.
Our security services allowed them to murder people on our own soil for decades. They have no right to whine about us supplying missiles to Ukraine, they brought it on themselves with their belligerence. And weakened and diminished though we are, it’s not like they’re doing any better.
“Expect greater humiliation to come.”? I take this as the opposite – a sign of pride that we are not kowtowing to the Russian imperialist war machine!
I think the author hits the nail on the head in the next to last paragraph. Russia has to be seen by its people to be doing some sort of retaliation against the western nations who are helping Ukraine’s war effort and, from Russia’s perspective, prolonging and escalating the conflict. The US is both too distant and too powerful to effectively antagonize, and the incoming President is more favorably disposed towards a peace deal. The EU is divided and Putin still has many friends there. He probably thinks there’s a chance the EU can be convinced to end or at least limit their support for Ukraine, and directly targeting them would only make that more difficult.
That leaves the UK. They’re no longer a part of the EU. The current government is not on the best of terms with the incoming Trump administration. There’s very little risk of meaningful retaliation. It’s a win-win. Russia gets to test out their asymmetric warfare tactics and use the UK as a punching bag for their domestic population with zero risk of altering the situation on the ground in Ukraine.
“The UK provision of weaponry, training and intelligence to Ukraine is likely viewed bitterly in the Kremlin not just as interference in its backyard and an obstacle to victory, but also as bearing indirect responsibility for the tens of thousands of young Russian lives claimed in this war.”
I’m no anti-Russia hawk, but even I would have to object to such a ludicrous line of reasoning. Those young Russian men are dead for no reason other than that Vladimir Putin has made a catastrophic error of statecraft in deciding to invade Ukraine. Ukraine is not Russian and that truth is not a a matter of anyone’s opinion except the Ukrainians themselves.
In effect, Russia declared war on Britain when it started murdering its own dissident citizens, then in Salisbury a British woman.
The fact that there is one less country that members of the Cabinet can jet off to for pointless freebies will cause pain to many of us.
Well, seen from the sideline of Scandinavia, hasn’t the conspicius rivalry between Brtain and Russia been one of the most durable and constant features of European politics over the last half-millenium? Apart from the occasional alliance in order to subdue France and Germany, the general pattern seems to be a nearly constant struggle to gain -or deny – access to the oceans. First came the Baltic basin with it’s strategic naval stores, then the Black Sea with it’s access to the Mediterranian, then the Great game for the Indian Ocean and still we haven’t entered the 1900s…
“The UK provision of weaponry, training and intelligence to Ukraine is likely viewed bitterly in the Kremlin not just as interference in its backyard and an obstacle to victory, but also as bearing indirect responsibility for the tens of thousands of young Russian lives claimed in this war.”
That sounds a reasonable opinion, and makes Russia’s response mild, not ‘harsh’.