Cameron in Russia: The start of a ‘slow thaw’ in relations?

David Cameron is now in Moscow. The first British prime minister to be here since Tony Blair in 2006. Moscow was ripped out of the regular round of prime ministerial trips when the former KGB agent Alexander Litvenenko was murdered in London.

Grounds for dewey-eyed optimism about a new dawn in Russo-British relations are pretty limited.

This trip is about showing we still mind very much that a radioactive assassination was committed on British soil but we want more Russian business and the occasional opportunity to at least talk to Vladimir Putin if there is big stuff coming up at the UN where Russia has its permanent seat.

Of late, since the summer of 2007 in fact, there’s been no top level contact with the bare-chested nationalist beyond a brief welcome call to Gordon Brown when he came into No 10 in 2007.

On this front, it was interesting to hear from the Russian ambassador in London on Friday. Briefing UK journalists ahead of the trip in his residence, the ambassador said that though Russia had recognised the TNC in Libya it remained critical of the original venture and thought there had been many breaches of the UN resolution by the countries backing the rebels – the most blatant being the French breaking of the UN resolution clause banning the supply of arms to either side. I’m sure the PM will hear about this from Russians.

There were 24 chief execs on the modest chartered plane to Moscow. Few will have turned right on a plane in living memory. Many won’t have been in such confined circumstances since they were swaddled.

But all this is as nothing to the difficulties ahead as they trade with Russia. Corruption is rampant and the state doesn’t hesitate to draft in its security apparatus to suit its own purposes.

So expectations are low. This is not a relationship that will ever blossom. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, an old Russia hand at the FCO said to me: “They think we’re fundamentally a declining power living in the past and that’s what we think of them too.”

William Hague is calling it the beginning only of a “slow thaw”.