British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday brushed aside questions about the Litvinenko case and made clear that his historic visit to Moscow was necessary to revive economic ties with Russia and promote global stability — as evidenced by $340 million in business deals signed during his visit.

But Cameron denied that he was putting trade before human rights by holding the first direct top-level Russian-British talks in Moscow since 2006.

"The [Litvinenko] issue has not been parked. The fact is that the two governments don't agree. … It remains an issue between Britain and Russia … but that does not mean that we freeze the entire relationship," Cameron said at a joint televised news conference with President Dmitry Medvedev in the Kremlin.

Dissident and former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko died after being poisoned by radioactive polonium in London in 2006, following a deathbed statement in which he accused Vladimir Putin, who then was president, of authorizing his killing.

The murder prompted a chill in ties between both countries not seen since the end of the Cold War, as Moscow refused to extradite the prime suspect, State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi.

Moscow has also bristled over London's refusal to extradite some Russian businessmen, first and foremost former oligarch and Kremlin power broker Boris Berezovsky.

Cameron said Foreign Secretary William Hague had spoken to Litvinenko's widow, Marina, prior to the delegation's departure for Moscow and was adamant that "difficult issues" would not be ignored:

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/cameron-sees-past-differences-for-340m/443640.html#ixzz1XnbPR9Qi
The Moscow Times

CAMERON IN MOSCOW:

KGB 'TRIED TO RECRUIT ME'

Prime Minister David Cameron told students in Moscow yesterday that the KGB "tried to recruit me" at the beach resort of Yalta when he visited Russia during his gap year in 1985, but he had "failed the interview". The one-day trip failed to break the diplomatic stalemate over the murder in London of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

U.S. Senator Benjamin Cardin introduced last year a bill proposing sanctions against 60 Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky's death. The bill has never been passed, but the State Department confirmed this summer that dozens of unspecified Russian officials had been blacklisted over the Magnitsky case.

Churov told Dozhd that he was on "Cardin's list," but gave no details. He added that he would only travel to the United States at the personal invitation of Cardin, who did not comment Wednesday.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman did not immediately reply to an e-mailed request for comment.

Churov, who has bristled at requests from Western election observers to monitor State Duma elections in December, added that he thought being on the list was an honor because “it exposed the stupidity of those who make such lists.”

MOSCOW — Russia has banned entry to dozens of U.S. officials allegedly involved in killings and abductions in response to Washington’s blacklisting of Russian officials involved in the prison death of a whistleblower.

The action was in response to the U.S. State Department’s decision in July to ban entry to dozens of unidentified Russian officials allegedly involved in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russian-bans-entry-to-unspecified-us-officials-in-response-to-magnitsky-blacklist/2011/10/22/gIQAv18x5L_story.html?hpid=z4

see above...

Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin expressed his "disgust" at the global media for its graphic coverage of ousted Libyan leader Moamar Gaddafi's death.

The overwhelming favourite in next year's Russian presidential elections told an election campaign meeting that he found the television coverage of Gaddafi's death immoral.

"Almost the entire Gaddafi family was killed. His body was shown on all the world channels. You could not watch without disgust," news agencies quoted Mr Putin as saying.

"What is that?" Mr Putin exclaimed. "They show a bloodied man, wounded, still alive but getting beaten to death. And they splash that all over the screen."

The comments were Mr Putin's first on the death of the Libyan strongman.

Disquiet has grown internationally over how Gaddafi met his end after National Transitional Coalition fighters hauled him out of a culvert where he was hiding following NATO air strikes on the convoy in which he had been trying to flee his home town.

Mobile phone videos show him still alive at that point.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-27/putin-disgust-at-gaddafi-coverage/3602748

Holding interminable inquiries into “historical crimes” is the new bloodsport for the British legal classes. They dominate each evening’s news. A high court judge has sonorously intoned that Putin is not very nice. Real men drop drone bombs on their enemies in foreign parts; dastardly Russians poison cups of tea – and fail to wash the pot afterwards.

How to respond? Great power relations conducted through official and unofficial channels in foreign capitals are a world unto themselves. Diplomacy and espionage have shielded a multitude of malpractices down the ages, from money-laundering to murder. They seem a quasi-fictional miasma, unconnected to any genuine balance of interests.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/22/litvinenko-sanction...