RUSSIA/UK:Britain's strained relations with Russia worsened yesterday when a cabinet minister appeared to suggest that Vladimir Putin's government might have been involved in political murders.
The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, also said British relations with Russia were at a very tricky stage. "The promise that President Putin had brought to Russia when he came to power has obviously been clouded by what's happened since and including some extremely murky murders."
He referred to the death of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a friend of poisoned former spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Under Mr Putin "there have been huge attacks on individual liberty and on democracy. And it's important that he retakes the democratic road, in my view," Mr Hain said.
His remarks came as the Conservatives sought a Commons statement today from the home secretary, John Reid, on the safety of Russian citizens in the UK following the death of Mr Litvinenko weeks after he was poisoned by radioactive polonium 210.
Speaking on the BBC AM programme, Mr Hain said recent events were "casting a cloud over President Putin's success in binding Russia together and in achieving economic stability out of chaos that he inherited".
Mr Hain's remarks were unusual in voicing widely held private concerns in government. Anglo-Russian relations, and EU-Russian relations, have been in long-term decline, leading to a standoff over plans to negotiate a new comprehensive treaty between Russian and the EU
A senior Downing Street figure warned last week that an increasingly unreliable Russia was liable to abuse its role as an energy supplier.
"It's important for us to take energy security seriously. The danger with Russia is that if you take the socialism out, all you are left with is nationalism."
At the beginning of the year, the dominant view inside No 10 was that Mr Putin could be readily managed so long as he was shown respect. There is now a feeling that something more sinister may be happening in Russia, and Mr Putin is taking the country on an irreversible course away from democracy.
Meanwhile, as home secretary John Reid said the police inquiry into Mr Litvinenko's death last Thursday had been upgraded from an "unexplained" to a "suspicious" death, experts voiced doubt at the theory that anyone acting alone could have used the isotope polonium 210 to kill him.
One scientist said polonium 210 would only kill so quickly if combined into a "designer toxin" with another isotope, beryllium, in a complicated process that would require state sponsorship.
"No individual could do this," said John Large, an independent nuclear consultant. "What you are talking about is the creation of a very clever little device, a designer poison pill, possibly created by nanotechnology. Without nanotechnology you would be talking about a fairly big pill, a pea-sized pill.
"Either way you are looking at intricate technology which is beyond the means and designs of a hired assassin without a state sponsor."
Senior police officers are drawing in experts from the International Atomic Energy Authority, and from the Atomic Weapons establishment at Aldermaston.
Every option is being considered, from Kremlin involvement to the theory that Mr Litvinenko's work in the anti-corruption unit of the FSB, Russia's MI5, created enemies with the means and knowledge to assassinate him.
The government's emergency planning group, Cobra, has met at least six times in the last few days. - ( Guardian service)