For the Russian state, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny was simply business

‘Alexei Navalny’s viral videos have done more than anything to expose the luxurious lifestyles of the Kremlin’s elite.’ Photograph: Pavel Golovkin/AP
‘Alexei Navalny’s viral videos have done more than anything to expose the luxurious lifestyles of the Kremlin’s elite.’ Photograph: Pavel Golovkin/AP

My favourite moment in The Godfather comes when Michael, barely moving his mouth, assures his brother: “It’s not personal, Sonny, it’s strictly business.” He’s not killing a New York City police captain to avenge his broken jaw, but to advance the Corleone family’s commercial interests.

It was a line I remembered when I first heard of the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the Russian anti-corruption campaigner whose viral videos have done more than anything to expose the luxurious lifestyles of the Kremlin’s elite (here’s one about a vice-premier, a jet and a pedigree corgi). Commentators regularly explain such poisonings – like that of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018, or that of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, or indeed many others – by saying that Vladimir Putin is settling old scores, eradicating perceived traitors.

But Putin’s Russia is a mafia state, as lawyers described it during the public inquiry into Litvinenko’s assassination, which concluded that the murder was “probably approved” by Putin himself. A mafia state doesn’t kill people for personal reasons, but for business ones: it’s not about the past, and all about the future.

There can be little doubt that, given the fact that chemical weapons such as the novichok compound used on Navalny are tightly controlled, senior figures in the Russian establishment must have approved this attack, as they did that on the Skripals in Salisbury, and on Litvinenko in London. And there can be little doubt that western countries will respond, as they did to the attempted murder of the Skripals, with targeted sanctions and spy expulsions.

But such responses are not working, because they are the equivalent of responding to a mafia murder by arresting the hitman, rather than by tackling the gang that ordered the hit. Since Putin assumed the presidency in 2000, he and his closest friends have used the powers of the Russian state to accumulate unimaginable wealth, and then to defend that wealth from any challenge.

They have undermined neighbouring countries to prevent democracy spreading into Russia; they have strategically hacked political campaigns in western countries to prevent a united front against their kleptocracy; they have used state companies to bully smaller countries, and to reward allies. They have even had fun with it, by using the powers of the state to cheat at sporting events and then by trolling people who get cross. The poisonings, the murders and the attempted murders are just the violent expressions of this constant effort to dominate.

While they have been building this mafia organisation, however, Russia has continued to look like a normal country, with ambassadors, a parliament, a seat at the United Nations, participation in international forums. Few things show the hollowness of these institutions more than the fact that, in 2017, a deputy minister flew to The Hague to unveil a plaque marking the full destruction of Russia’s chemical weapon stockpile. Less than six months later, two agents of the GRU (Russia’s military spy agency) used novichok – a chemical weapon – to attack the Skripals in Salisbury. Against Navalny, it’s been used again.

It is time to assess the Kremlin by what it does, not by what it says: as a government that deploys chemical weapons, not one that destroys them; as a kleptocracy controlled by a ruthless mafia, not as a regular member of the family of nations.

In Britain, we need to choke off the access of the Russian elite to our financial system and our luxury goods markets, which remain wide open to infiltration. When tens of billions of dollars of Russian kleptocratic wealth was laundered via Danske Bank, it was most often hidden behind shell structures provided – for just a few pounds apiece – by Companies House, our disastrously unregulated corporate registry.

Germany needs to halt its Nordstream 2 pipeline, intended to bring Russian gas to Germany without passing through any of the intermediary countries. That would not just help tackle the climate emergency, but would also prevent yet more fossil fuel wealth flowing into the hands of Putin’s friends. Malta and Cyprus should stop selling Russian oligarchs passports, and other EU countries should stop selling them visas: no one should be profiting from allowing Russian crooks to circumvent other nations’ controls.

It is surely too late to expect Donald Trump to stand up to Putin, but other American politicians need to build on the tough sanctions they have already imposed, and force companies that are – in reality – arms of the mafia state to either clean up or get out.

But before that can happen, our politicians need to wake up to the threat. Boris Johnson’s disastrously lax attitude was revealed by his attempt to suppress the intelligence and security committee’s report into Russian interference in the UK, and then – once he had failed – by his shameful dismissal of its findings as a plot by “Islingtonian remainers” to undermine Brexit.

But this complacency is not confined to the Tories. The Danske Bank affair, the biggest money-laundering scandal of all time, has never been mentioned in the House of Commons by an MP from any party, despite the central role played in it by British shell companies.

It is easy to see why our politicians don’t want to tackle Russia: it would be complicated, expensive and probably wouldn’t win them many votes. But if they don’t discover the same passion for the rule of law and liberal democracy that the Kremlin has for tyranny and lawless kleptocracy, our system will gradually be overcome.

I am not arguing for a new cold war, but for the crooks and thieves that Navalny has long exposed to be shut out of our financial system, our markets, our countries and our international meetings. It is only when they have no way of laundering the money they steal, and nowhere to spend it, that they will stop stealing it. If we wish to prevent future poisonings, we need to recognise they are just one part of a ruthless business empire run from a Kremlin that has become totally corrupted, and respond to it as we would to a mafia clan.

Oliver Bullough is the author of Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back.

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