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What Ties With Moscow?
British MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee claim that Britain's closeness to the United States has "impacted negatively" on the UK's relationship with Russia.
"We recommend that the government should seek to improve its relations with Russia without damaging its relations with the U.S," the Committee concluded.
We didn't know London had any ties with Moscow. In recent years, Russia has feted a man who Britain accuses of carrying out an act of nuclear terrorism on British soil. It has issued poorly-veiled warnings against British and Russian citizens living in London.
Moscow has stepped up rhetoric against NATO, a military alliance of which Britain is a leading member. Its fighters have buzzed British RAF jets. The Estonian government blames government-backed Russian hackers for bringing down its government and business internet system earlier this year, with disastrous results for the economy. Estonia is both a NATO ally and an EU member.
Russian hackers are also believed to be responsible for a denial of service attack against the internet site of Britain's best-selling broadsheet newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, which brought the website down for more than 24 hours.
Russia uses its control of gas and oil supplies to exercise political pressure on neighbouring nations, many of whom are, like Estonia, EU and NATO allies.
Moscow recently declared ownership of around half the seabed under the Arctic ice cap, a claim that could put it into direct confrontation with Canada, another NATO ally and member of the British Commonwealth.
Of course, we can't blame Moscow for all the above: It is true that more could be done to assuage Russian concerns about NATO missile bases planned for eastern Europe, though it is more likely that political pressure in the planned locations for the bases will see them scrapped. Furthermore, we can't blame Moscow for the hundreds of rich Russians buying up much of London and busily converting much of the capital into a Russian fiefdom: No-one asked Brits if they wanted the Russians to move in, and doubtless Moscow would like to see some of them returned. But it is difficult to see what Britain's closeness to the US has done to harm ties, when there doesn't seem to be much in the relationship with Moscow in the first place.
