Russia's Man Says It All

I always enjoy the Whitehall mandarins who speak "British", a dialect of English which is almost comprehensible but manages to obscure nearly every topic it touches. Deliberately. But our lot are amateurs compared with Yuri Fedotov, the Russian ambassador to London. Yesterday he gave a sustained and bravura display of how to skate around a subject, appearing to be candid, while saying virtually nothing. It was sheer genius.

His Excellency was appearing at the House of Lords committee on the European Union. The subject was relations between Russia and the EU, which provided the perfect escape hatch when the topic of the Litvinenko assassination came up. "Once again, I can say what I repeatedly say to my British colleagues, that is a bilateral issue which needs to be discussed between the UK and the Russian government, and we don't think that is a matter for the European Union. Certainly there will be further questions and we will be answering those questions. I will continue to do this."

Magnificent! Mr Fedotov is a very big man. No doubt the tundra shakes as he walks. He has also survived a long time in the Russian foreign service, gliding smoothly from the Communist regime to Vladimir Putin.

Their lordships moved on to the harassment of British Council employees last month. Mr Fedotov speaks good English, though his voice tends to drop as his answers proceed. An ambassador is an honest man who is sent abroad to mumble for his country.

I quote a longish chunk of his reply as it's the only way I can communicate its full coiling, sinuous skill. "Russia does not have any concerns about what the British Council is doing in Russia. It is doing well in terms of cultural exchange, but unfortunately actions of the British Council in Russia were lacking legal grounds, and as a matter of fact the 1974 agreement only mentioned the possibility of opening cultural centers, and indicated a need to have a special agreement which unfortunately is not signed, but we were close to having an agreement last year, but because of political acts by the British government all was suspended, including discussions of the culture agreement, and the British Council does not have legal grounds for its actions, but as a gesture of goodwill, the Russian government has not insisted on the suspension of the British Council office in Moscow, and I hope we will resume discussions of cultural agreements and the British Council will have legal grounds for the continuation of its work in Russia," he ended, on what would have been a note of triumph if it had not been delivered in a low growl.

Either way it was a superb display - you will have spotted how he slipped in the line about it all being the fault of the British government, but so subtly that you had to be listening hard to notice.

Lost in admiration, I looked up Mr Fedotov's entry in Who's Who. He is a member of the Athenaeum Club, the British Establishment's establishment, which may explain everything.