British-Russian relations

(Newser) - To Britain, he’s a wanted man, a murderer responsible for a diplomatic crisis. To Russia, he’s a respected, successful politician. So it was an unrepentant Andrei Lugovoi who sat down with the Guardian’s Luke Harding. The ex-KGB man insists he did not poison dissident Alexander Litvinenko by...

(Newser) - Alexander Litvinenko's widow calls for a public inquiry into the poisoning of the Russian spy in an op-ed for today's Times of London. Both the British foreign secretary and Scotland Yard have sought to dissuade her from petitioning for an inquest, saying it would prejudge a criminal trial against chief...

(Newser) - Two brothers, one with ties to a UK-Russia joint oil venture, have been arrested in Moscow and accused of industrial espionage, the BBC reports. Ilya and Alexander Zaslavsky were charged after yesterday's raid on oil giant TNK-BP, but analysts say Russia's interest in the matter goes beyond spying, as the...

(Newser) - As Gordon Brown extended only the most cursory congratulations to Dmitry Medvedev yesterday, the frozen diplomatic relations between Russia and Britain seem unlikely to thaw, reports the Times of London. The UK prime minister sent a letter rather than making the usual phone call to a president-elect, and he pointedly...