British Agency Defies Russia
Two Cultural Offices Open Despite Order; Moscow Retaliates

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 15, 2008

MOSCOW, Jan. 14 -- Two British government-financed cultural offices opened for business Monday in defiance of a Russian government shutdown order, leading Russia to retaliate with a formal protest and limitations on visas for British staff members.

The fight over the St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg branches of the British Council took relations between the governments, already strained by a standoff over a high-profile murder case, to a new low.

Late last year, Russian authorities demanded that the offices be closed by Jan. 1, saying they had no legal standing to operate in Russia. But the offices reopened Monday after a break for New Year's and Orthodox Christmas.

"We have received no information to indicate that our work is not legal," James Kennedy, director of the British Council in Russia, told reporters at its St. Petersburg office Monday. "We are dismayed that the work of the council for culture and education was brought to the political arena. We are not a political organization."

The Russian Foreign Ministry called in British Ambassador Anthony Brenton to protest his country's decision to reopen the offices. "Given that our calls were not heeded, Russia has to take administrative and legal measures in line with Russian laws and world practices," the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said it would issue no new visas for British consular officials who work at the council and would not renew the visas of British officials already in Russia and working at the council.

"The ambassador was told that the Russian side sees such actions as a deliberate provocation aimed at inciting tension in Russian-British relations," the ministry said.

The Yekaterinburg office is located at the British Consulate in that city, while the St. Petersburg office is in a building separate from the consulate. Russian officials appear to have decided to squeeze the ability of both offices to continue to work rather than raid the premises, which would dramatically escalate the dispute.

Russia says the British Council, which has been the subject of investigations by the tax authorities here, is operating illegally in the country. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has publicly linked the dispute to Britain's demand that Russia turn over Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB agent, to stand trial in London.

Lugovoy is charged with murdering Alexander Litvinenko, a former domestic security service agent and fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin. Litvinenko was poisoned in London in November 2006.

Russian officials said the extradition of its citizens is barred by its constitution, and prosecutors here said they had seen no evidence of Lugovoy's alleged complicity in the crime.

Britain expelled four Russian diplomats after Moscow's refusal to extradite Lugovoy, who has since been elected to parliament. Moscow responded with the expulsion of four British diplomats.

Brenton said after his meeting at the Foreign Ministry that the British Council, which offers English lessons and cultural programs, would continue to operate, despite the Russian government's order.

"The British Council is working entirely legally, and it will continue, therefore, to work, and any Russian action against it would be a breach of international law," Brenton said.

Britain insists that both regional offices are protected by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations as well as a 1994 agreement between Britain and Russia.

Brenton also rejected any attempt to link the council's work to the Litvinenko case. "To turn that issue into an attack on an institution that is valuable to Russia, and valuable to the United Kingdom, is frankly mystifying," Brenton said.

Russian officials said they would take "additional measures" if the British did not yield. That could mean an attempt to close the British Council's Moscow office, which was not targeted in the original order.