Another front in Putin's war with the West

This is no longer personal. The family of Alexander Litvinenko, who launched a high-profile campaign backed by a sworn enemy of Vladimir Putin to track down the perpetrator of the deliberate poisoning of the former Russian spy on British soil, can now take a back seat. What now ensues is a battle between two states, Britain and Russia, as British authorities press the reluctant Russians to hand over a Russian citizen, Dmitry Lugovoi, suspected of murdering Mr Litvinenko in London last November with radioactive polonium 210.

The legal battle lines were drawn yesterday, as British prosecutors called for Mr Lugovoy to be extradited and charged with the "extraordinarily grave crime" of murdering his fellow former security agent. The Russians, as had been expected, swiftly responded that no treaty existed to extradite a Russian national wanted for committing a crime abroad, and that in any case such extradition was banned under the constitution.

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But a far greater chasm looms between the two countries which until now had avoided a serious deterioration in their political relations since the murder of Mr Litvinenko six months ago. The Kremlin had accused the British media of hysterically pointing the finger at the Kremlin, indeed at Mr Putin himself, over the poisoning while taking pains to say that government to government relations remained professional and untainted by the scandal. The official denials that the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, leaned on the crown prosecution service, only underscore the importance of the political stakes.

For if Russia continues to refuse to cooperate in the Litvinenko case, UK-Russian relations will be in the deep freeze for a good while to come. But Britain is not alone - the tensions between the West and a newly assertive Russia have led to an escalation in hostile rhetoric that has not been seen since the days of the Cold War. The Polish foreign minister, Anna Fotyga, on Monday was asked at a seminar on European security in the Polish mountain resort of Zakopane whether Russia was backtracking on democracy and represented a threat to central Europeans. "I genuinely hope your assessment is wrong - but it is only a hope," she said darkly.

The signs of a chill were already there, with Russia accusing Britain of harbouring its enemies such as Boris Berezovsky, Mr Litvinenko's former employer who recently called openly for the "violent overthrow" of the Putin government. When Russian detectives launched their own investigation into the Litvinenko poisoning and flew to London to interview Mr Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch says that they were more interested in finding out about his bank account details than in solving the murder. Russia is seeking Mr Berezovky's extradition on fraud charges. The Russians have also failed to extradite the "terrorist" Akhmad Zakayev, a spokesman for the Chechen rebels who is part of Mr Berezovsky's circle.

The Kremlin meanwhile, benefitting from record oil revenues, stands accused of using its oil and gas as a weapon against its trading partners, while curtailing human rights and political freedoms ahead of presidential elections next year. At least 13 journalists have been murdered in unsolved cases in Russia, including the American journalist who edited Forbes Russia, Paul Klebnikov, and the investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya. Yelena Tregubova, a 33 year old journalist who wrote a bestseller which displeased the Kremlin, has fled to London to seek asylum rather than become another grim statistic.

Mr Putin was taken to task on human rights and democracy as recently as last Friday by the German chancellor Angela Merkel, and the European Commission's president, Jose Manuel Barroso, at an EU-Russia summit on the river Volga, after the Russians arrested a leading opposition figure, champion chess player Garry Kasparov, who had planned to lead a "March of the Dissenters" near the summit venue.

Earlier in the week, Mr Putin had hosted difficult talks with the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, who denied that a new Cold War was afoot. "I don't throw around terms like new Cold War," said Ms Rice, a Soviet scholar who would well remember the days when the two superpowers had their nuclear arsenals pointed at each other on hair trigger alert. Their principal dispute centres mainly on security, with the Americans taking pains to reassure the Russians that plans to site missile defence installations in the Czech republic and Poland do not pose a threat against Russia. Mr Putin is sceptical, seeing his country ever more closely surrounded by Nato members. Days earlier, he had likened US unilateralism to the policies of the Third Reich.

But Russia's pro-western neighbours also complain volubly about the Russian bear. Poland managed to enlist EU support for a lingering dispute with Russia which has banned Polish meat exports since 2005 in what the Poles describe as a politically motivated move. Fellow EU member Estonia, which triggered Russian ire by removing a wartime Soviet memorial, has accused Russia of launching a cyberattack on its government websites in retaliation, prompting Nato experts to travel to Tallinn to investigate.

Ukraine and Georgia have both been on the receiving end of Russia's belligerent trade behaviour, with both countries having suffered from gas cuts while Georgia has borne the brunt of a full trade embargo.

At the Zakopane seminar in Poland yesterday, a Czech expert explained to a sceptical audience of central and eastern Europeans that his government accepted the American explanation that the missile defence radar was needed in the Czech republic because of the threat from North Korea. The laughter was almost audible. Michal Koran, from the Prague Institute of International Relations, told his critics that it was important while "building friendship with Russia" not to engage in "finger pointing," saying that is why the Czech government "refuses to say the missile system is directed against Russia."

A Slovak expert who asserted that Russia was economically weak despite its oil wealth and therefore posed no long-term strategic threat faced objections from Ukrainian and Georgian journalists who pointed out that their countries were dealing with a "direct military threat" from Russia.

Luckily for both the West and Russia, perhaps, there is a forthcoming G8 summit in Germany next month at which political leaders on both sides of the divide can unburden themselves. But the disputes and deep mistrust are concrete and not just in the realm of rhetoric, as the Litvinenko murder attests. Tony Blair's spokesman said yesterday: "No one should be under any doubt about the seriousness with which we regard this case. Murder is murder."