The Problem

A thoroughly perceptive and thought-provoking point that’s made in the Economist’s latest diagnosis of just what is wrong with Russia. The article sees

the problem at the bottom of Russia’s increasingly bitter ties with the West: the Russians’ deep conviction that the rest of the world works as Russia does, and that all politics and diplomacy are as cynical and self-interested as Russia’s own.

The row over Mr Berezovsky is another example of this way of thinking. Some Russians simply refuse to believe that in Britain extradition cases are decided by the courts, rather than by the government. Likewise, some in the Kremlin were angry that Litvinenko’s deathbed accusations managed to penetrate his police guard to be broadcast: they apparently assumed that protection meant arrest.