DAR AL HARB - U.K./RUSSIA: PUTIN OF THE KGB THREATENS GREAT BRITAIN - - - WILL HE CUT OFF THEIR NATURAL GAS OR JUST POISON PEOPLE ON A MASS SCALE ?!?

Russia to respond to expulsion of its diplomats
By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent, and Adrian Blomfield in Moscow

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, briefed Cabinet colleagues today on Britain's "diplomatic retaliatory response" in expelling four Russian diplomats in the Litvinenko poison case row.

Gordon Brown's spokesman said the UK was now awaiting Moscow's official response to the expulsions, and other measures announced by Mr Miliband yesterday.

Britain hit back after Russia refused to extradite ex-KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy to face charges of killing dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London with a radioactive substance.

Asked if the four to be expelled had been carefully selected, Mr Brown's spokesman said: "This was a general diplomatic retaliatory response."

He declined to discuss the details of the Cabinet discussion, and dismissed any notion that Russia might not view the row seriously because Mr Brown had not spoken directly to President Vladimir Putin.

"I don't think there's any doubt about the seriousness with which people should consider our response," said the spokesman. "We are waiting to see what response comes from Russia."

The Russian government has condemned the move as "provocative" and "immoral" and said it would have "the most serious consequences for Russian-British relations as a whole".

Foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said the UK was "trying to justify" its own refusal to extradite tycoon Boris Berezovsky and Chechen separatist figure Akhmed Zakayev.

He did not specify what measures Russia would take but said they would seek to resolve the issues "in a constructive way, without politicising them".

Last night, Russia threatened Britain with "serious consequences" after David Miliband revived memories of the Cold War by announcing that four Russian diplomats were to be expelled from London.

The decision showed how Anglo-Russian relations have sunk to their lowest ebb since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. Mr Miliband said that Britain had no choice but to send a "clear and proportionate signal" to Moscow following President Vladimir Putin's refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB agent.

Mr Miliband is the first Foreign Secretary to remove any Russian diplomats for 11 years. The prospect of a tit-for-tat round of expulsions is a throwback to the era of Cold War tensions when each country saw the other as a rival.

A Scotland Yard investigation concluded that Mr Lugovoi should stand trial for allegedly murdering Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB spy and naturalised British citizen, in London last year. Mr Miliband said that a "significant body of evidence" implicated Mr Lugovoi in the "horrifying and lingering death" of Litvinenko from radiation poisoning.

In a statement to the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary said that Britain had to show Russia the "consequences" of failing to hand over Mr Lugovoi. "We have chosen to expel four particular diplomats in order to send a clear and proportionate signal to the Russian government," he said.

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