British Foreign Office diplomats are urging David Cameron not to launch a substantial new round of economic sanctions against Russia this week if the independent inquiry into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko finds the Russian state was responsible for his death.

The prime minister is due to receive the report on Tuesday before its publication on Thursday, and senior diplomats have argued that the wider interests of Anglo-Russian relations, including a settlement to the four-year Syrian civil war, require a degree of restraint.

The UK government assumption is that Sir Robert Owen, a retired high court judge, will at the least find Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi responsible for the murder of Litvinenko, 43. He was poisoned in November 2006 with radioactive polonium while drinking tea at the Millennium hotel in London’s Grosvenor Square.

Many expect that Owen will go further and find the Russian state liable for his death, but it will be argued that state liability is not the same as proving that Putin himself ordered the killing.

In a sign of the political pressure Cameron will face to punish Russia, Tim Farron said those responsible should be subject to a ban on travelling to the UK and excluded from the UK banking system.

The Liberal Democrat leader said he was calling for a British Magnitsky law, the equivalent of the US law that imposed travel bans on those responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption lawyer who died in pretrial custody in November 2009 after nearly a year in a Russian jail. “By poisoning one of their own on British soil, the Russian government completely disregarded the rule of law both within the UK and internationally,” he said.

Farron’s suggestion is likely to enjoy backing from Litvinenko’s widow Marina. She and her lawyer, Ben Emmerson QC, will almost certainly argue this week for tough new sanctions along the lines of the Magnitsky Act against both individuals linked to her husband’s murder and state entities.

At the time of his death, Litvinenko was working for MI6, the British spy agency, as a part-time consultant. He was poisoned with polonium-210, a rare radioactive isotope made only at closed nuclear facilities controlled by the Russian state. His murder was an unprecedented act of state terrorism, last year’s inquiry was told.

Shadow cabinet members will also this week call for sanctions to be imposed, although some Labour MPs fear Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition to sanctions against Russia over Ukraine may lead to more qualified condemnation by Labour.



On the basis of evidence presented to the public inquiry, it could find Russian government agents were culpable for the murder of Litvinenko, a UK citizen, using methods that could have endangered other Britons.

At a minimum it is expected the British will ask the Russian government to extradite Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, the two alleged assassins, but there is little expectation that the extradition request will be granted. In 2007, Vladimir Putin rejected a previous request for extradition, describing it as an example of Britain’s “no brains” colonial mentality.

The Foreign Office is eager to avoid a full blown row partly because Putin’s cooperation is badly needed to create a unified front against Islamic State in Syria. The west would also like Russia to abandon the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as part of a transition to a new government.

There is also a view of resignation in parts of the Foreign Office that Litvinenko cannot be brought back to life; most of the relevant Russian diplomats or agents have long left the UK and the inquiry was not asked, or capable of being able to prove conclusively whether Putin was aware what his agents were doing in London.

Apart from seeking the extradition of the two agents, Britain is likely to reaffirm its refusal to cooperate with the Russian secret service, the FSB. Britain has already wound down cooperation with the FSB to a minimum and regards Russia as one of the chief sources of cyber crime in the UK.

Another issue is whether the British government does more to crack down on money laundering by Russians linked to the murder using UK banks. Wider EU economic sanctions against Russia covering finance, energy and defence over its intervention in Ukraine were rolled over before Christmas until this summer, but it is increasingly hard to retain EU support.

Britain believes Putin is content to abandon Assad, but will sell him for high price and seek influence over the new regime. One British source said Putin wants “a shaping voice and right of veto in Syria”. Although British sources admit it is increasingly hard to understand what is happening inside the Kremlin, Britain’s strategic goal is to cement Russian support for an anti-terrorist alliance.

The Foreign Office and the home secretary, Theresa May, will do their best to insist that the inquest is entirely independent from government and not a political act.