Boris Johnson in Moscow: Important Visit Without Positive Cooperative Agenda

This is an important visit but we should not be too optimistic about concrete results

Mr. Johnson comes to Moscow with following a number of statements by senior British politicians and officials, including by Prime Minister May, who accused Russia of interfering in elections and “weaponising information”, and the newly appointed Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, who suggested that Russia is fighting the UK in a new “cool war”. Johnson himself has spoken similarly, noting that Russia has not been so hostile to the UK or Western interests since the end of the Cold War, and pointing to Russian activities in Crimea and the Western Balkans. Perhaps more importantly, though, he also arrives carrying the heavy baggage that has built up over the last decade, including from previous governments: the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 was a very serious moment in the relationship, one from which it has never really recovered. As a result of these long-term difficulties, the upcoming visit is one of only a very few high-level meetings between UK and Russian officials and politicians.

Concerning the most recent statements of Mr. Johnson, the best way of thinking about them is to read the whole speech that he gave, rather than simply focus on his comment on Russia as Sparta. He often uses colourful analogies, but he has also spoken, for instance, about his ancestral relationship to Russia and the need to create a more engaged relationship with Russia – in so doing pointing to past cooperation between the two countries, including in the war against Nazism. So, apart from the analogy of the Peloponnesian wars, he also sought to point to the need to create constructive dialogue between London and Moscow. To emphasize the importance of this visit, of trying to rebuild the relationship, Mr. Johnson also said that he wanted to see some kind of practical engagement. His message, therefore is: “yes, we have to be firm and uncompromising, but the UK also seeks to engage”.

Is it possible to expect a comprehensive unfreezing of bilateral relations? The problem here is the set of disagreements that between the UK and Russia, which have lasted for over a decade, both in bilateral relations and in wider international affairs in Euro-Atlantic security and beyond, and as both sides often emphasise in public a serious loss of trust in the other over that time. To expect one visit to change that would be really optimistic indeed. It is important that both Russia and the UK speak to each other, not least to minimise misunderstanding and miscalculation about each other, and that there are functioning mechanisms for dialogue. And I do think that the UK takes the relationship with Russia and particularly Russia’s role in international affairs seriously. So perhaps this is the beginning of some form of meaningful reconstitution of exchanges. But I do not see that one visit will lead to a comprehensive unfreezing of bilateral relations.

This is because it will be very difficult to create a positive cooperative agenda, because many positions of Russia and the UK not just do not coincide, but are actually in disagreement. For instance, there is a lot of disagreement about Syria. Mr. Johnson says that we need to talk to Russia about how they see the endgame in Syria and how the relationship between Russia and Syria is to be understood. There are also disagreements about European security, and so on. So it is important that dialogue mechanisms are reconstituted, but it will be difficult to find areas of real, substantive agreement. That will take time, and many more meetings.

 

Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.