Vanessa Redgrave: Impassioned, sincere advocate for human rights in fragile world facing harsh decisions

Vanessa Redgrave is sorry, but she is "on the warpath this morning". We are in the kitchen of her Chiswick flat, dominated by a luxuriant avocado plant, negotiating whether she will answer questions about anything other than Chechnya and the leading Chechen politician and actor, Akhmed Zakayev.

Ms Redgrave has put up £50,000 bail for Mr Zakayev as he faces proceedings to extradite him to Russia for what she says are wholly fabricated charges, an extradition which could cost him his life.

I start by saying I obviously want to major on that topic and she breaks in. "A sentence that begins with 'obviously' always has a 'but' in the middle of it," she says. "I mean, I simply do not want an interview that's not about Chechnya and Mr Zakayev, so I can save your time and just give you a nice cup of coffee and I can even do a bit of a morning shop."

Two points emerge from this exchange. The first is that she conducts herself with disarming charm. This manifests itself in several ways.

Because her assistant has given us instant coffee she insists on making real coffee.

She has also taken the trouble to photocopy for us an important article from The Wall Street Journal by Ivan Rybkin, the former head of Russia's security council, denouncing Moscow's rejection of Mr Zakayev's attempts to broker a lasting peace settlement for Chechnya. He saysthis is playing into the hands of extremists "who may indeed have some al-Qa'ida links" and warns the US to desist from allowing Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, to justify the brutal repression of Chechnya as part of the war against terror.

Even her stipulation that she should not be photographed smoking is qualified. "I'm so ashamed of my smoking," she says. "You can write 'she smokes non-stop'. Everybody does. They think, 'Oh good, personal touch'. But please don't take a picture because it encourages young people." The Independent's photographer, Jack Hill, remarks that he has just given up. She immediately offers to put her cigarette out.

When the session is over, she tells him that if the pictures are good she might use one in the actors' directory, Spotlight, as if the Redgrave career, as much as that of any unknown actress, somehow depended on such a thing.

The second point about Ms Redgrave is her passionate and well-informed concern about the fate of Mr Zakayev and his country.

Mr Zakayev could yet become a first-order political problem. Campaigners fear David Blunkett will come under intense pressure from Moscow to extradite Mr Zakayev as a favour to Mr Putin. His case comes at a time when the West is seeking Mr Putin's support, not least for war against Iraq.

Mr Zakayev is charged with taking part in terrorism and civil war. Charges include two alleged murders, one of a priest who has subsequently turned out to be very much alive.

Ms Redgrave says: "What I am sure of is that the truth will come out: that Mr Zakayev has had no part in any terror or any terrorist crimes whatsoever, or indeed any crimes. And that I am absolutely sure of."

But given her view of the desperate condition of the Chechen people, would it make any difference to her, as someone who has had revolutionary goals for most of her life, if he had played such a part?

"There's no point in even discussing it because he never did. But if you said 'how would I feel if I suddenly realised that somebody I knew had done something horrific' – I've never worked to help somebody who has been like that."

Mr Zakayev said the most recent atrocity, the hostage taking in a Moscow theatre, had been a tragedy for both the Russian and Chechen people. Did she agree?

She did. "Most of my family were in Manhattan at the time [of 11 September] and when you know that close what terrorism means, you can't wrap it up just like that. It has always been my view that terrorism against civilians is an enormous violation of human rights and when you're not just watching it on television, when you know when it means, you see things differently. I suppose I'm only stressing that because when you know what it means to have seen colleagues and friends and family destroyed in front of your eyes and yet you still work to try and get peace, you're somebody pretty special – and that's Mr Zakayev."

She has a similar approach to suicide bombings in Israel, even though she has long pursued the Palestinian cause.

"But then what do people want to do about it?" she asks. "Do they want to pursue solutions that can bring peace for both peoples and an end to terror? Then you come to the issues of who is around who has the political will to try and find a solution that paves the way with some just steps, however small. That requires enormous political experience and a deep understanding, a deep humanity and a major political skill, I would say." Mr Zakayev, she says, had been an "incredible" actor and a tireless champion – as leader of the Theatre Workers' Union and as Minister of Culture – of both the Chechen and Russian-language theatres in Grozny. He also championed the Philharmonic Hall, which was reduced to rubble in the first Chechen war.

It rather reminds her, she adds, of how when she was a child, Duff Cooper was persuaded to re-open the war-darkened London theatres because "the theatre is part of the soul of people and that's where resistance is extremely strong to all the horrors of daily life, let alone war".

Mr Zakayev's objective was a negotiated peace. "He knows perfectly well that his extradition, arrest and so on was ... fabricated to try and put him ... out of action, and try and make it seem as if there's no one to talk to so there can't be peace," she says.

During the Second World War, Winston Churchill had no doubt been right to form an alliance with Stalin despite the terrible price paid in British silence about the gulags. But now, she says, "the present complicity of Europe in keeping absolutely silent about what Russia's doing to Chechnya" is a "disaster" which "strengthened the worst, most undemocratic forces in Russia, weakening such impulses as there may be within the Kremlin against war.

So was Tony Blair guided in his relations with Moscow by cynical, global realpolitik? After a long and unblinking look which prompts me to assure her I'm not trying to put words into her mouth, she replies: "Well I think you are. I would pose it differently. I would say what happens to the Russian people and the Chechen people and all those involved is fundamental to the well-being and safety of all peoples in Europe."

Given this appeal to the enlightened self-interest of all Europeans, I can't help asking about her personal politics. Ms Redgrave followed the hard-line Trotskyite leader Gerry Healy out of the Workers Revolutionary Party in 1985 when he was expelled after allegations he violently intimidated adversaries, accepted money from Libya and Iraq and made sexual advances to female party members.

Was she still a revolutionary 17 years later?

"Well, the age was very difficult and complex. Our planet and every person on it is in great danger, so it forces you to think," she says. Though there was a "through line" in her politics, she says her thinking and how she tries to examine "what's going on" has undergone a lot of changes. "I categorically will work with anybody who shares a goal that seems to me to be of fundamental human importance and to involve human rights as well," she says. Because she is at once one of the greatest actresses of her generation and intelligent enough to be shrewdly tactical about the campaign she is currently waging on behalf of Mr Zakayev, you could wonder whether this was the sum of her political mission.

But that would be unfair. Her passion to see what she perceives to be the deep wrongs in Chechnya righted shows every sign of being profound and persuasive. Had she, though a founder member of the Marxist Party, voted Liberal Democrat in 2001 as she had in 1997? She had, preferring their policies, not least on asylum seekers. So had she finally shed the sectarianism which had informed her politics for so long? "Well," she replies. "All I can say is, things are a bit too urgent to be sectarian."