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Vol.39 N° 68
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Vol. 39, Nº 68 (Enero - Junio) 2021, 315-322
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
The Dynamic of Developing of the
Relations between Russia and Great
Britain during the President Vladimir
Putin’s Third Term (2012-2018)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.3968.19
Vasil Timerjanovich Sakaev *
Oksana Sergeyevna Demianko **
Rushana Alfredovna Faizullina ***
Abstract
The article looks into the features of Russo-British relations in
the period from 2012 to 2018 during the third presidential term
of Vladimir Putin. During this period, they went through several
stages in their development from a period of alienation to almost
direct confrontation. The authors reviewed the key events in the
period under study in bilateral relations. The factors that played a leading
role in the formation of relations at the present stage are also highlighted.
The analysis of the position of the two States on various events, including
Brexit, was conducted. The research is based on historical-descriptive
and intuitive-logical methods. The analysis of the position of the two
States on various events was conducted. The results obtained correspond
to the conclusions of a number of researchers and expand the existing
understanding of the nature of Russia’s bilateral relations with leading
Western Powers in the second decade of the XXI century.
Keywords: bilateral relations; Russia and Great Britain; foreign policy;
relational crises; sanctions and negotiation.
* Candidate of Historical Science, associate professor, Institute of International Relations, Kazan Federal
University, ID Scopus: 57189332622. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9921-3799. Email:
vasil.sakaev@gmail.com
** BA, Institute of International Relations, Kazan Federal University. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-
0001-5540-0261. Email: demiankooksana@gmail.com
*** Assistant professor, Institute of International Relations, Kazan Federal University. ORCID ID: https://
orcid.org/0000-0001-9196-0098. Email: rurinch@mail.ru
316
Vasil Timerjanovich Sakaev, Oksana Sergeyevna Demianko y Rushana Alfredovna Faizullina
The Dynamic of Developing of the Relations between Russia and Great Britain during the
President Vladimir Putin’s Third Term (2012-2018)
La dinámica del desarrollo de las relaciones entre
Rusia y Gran Bretaña durante el tercer mandato del
presidente Vladimir Putin (2012-2018)
Resumen
El artículo analiza las características de las relaciones ruso-británicas en
el período de 2012 a 2018 durante el tercer mandato presidencial de Rusia
Vladimir Putin. Durante este período, las relaciones aludidas pasaron por
varias etapas en su desarrollo desde un período de alienación hasta una
confrontación casi directa. Los autores revisaron los hechos clave del
período en estudio en las relaciones bilaterales. También se destacan los
factores que jugaron un papel protagónico en la formación de relaciones
en la etapa actual. Se realizó el análisis de la posición de los dos Estados
sobre diversos hechos, incluido el Brexit. La investigación se basa en los
métodos histórico-descriptivos e intuitivo-lógicos. Se realizó el análisis de la
posición de los dos Estados sobre diversos hechos. Los resultados obtenidos
corresponden a las conclusiones de varios investigadores y amplían el
conocimiento existente sobre la naturaleza de las relaciones bilaterales de
Rusia con las principales potencias occidentales en la segunda década del
siglo XXI.
Palabras clave: relaciones bilaterales; Rusia y Gran Bretaña; política
exterior; crisis relacionales; sanciones y negociación.
Introduction
Relations between Russia and the UK throughout their history have
never been simple. There are several reasons for this. First, countries do
not have enough principled foundations for sustained cooperation and
genuine trust due to a lack of shared values. The leaders of both countries
have different understanding of the meaning of democracy, supremacy of
law, human rights, and state sovereignty. The crises in Libya, Syria, and
Ukraine show that British and Russian foreign policy interests regularly
diverge, and these contradictions may even be irreconcilable. In addition,
relations between countries are burdened with a long historical baggage,
not always with a positive context. Since 2010, a phase of relative calm
in relations between Russia and the UK seemed to have begun after the
coalition government led by David Cameron came to power in May this
year. There are even positive features in the relations between the two
countries. However, this lull did not last long.
In this article, the authors will try to give a retrospective analysis of
the development of relations between the two countries, highlighting
the stages of their development during the period and try to understand
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Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 315-322
how signicant this negative “baggage” is for the development of bilateral
relations in the future.
1. Methods
The research is based on classic methods developed in the theory of
international relations, namely historical-descriptive and intuitive-logical
methods. They are best suited for solving the research problem set in the
article. The source base for the study was made up of ofcial documents of
foreign ministries, public statements by the leaders of the two countries,
and materials from the leading media.
2. Results and Discussion
As you know, in March 2012, elections were held in the Russian
Federation, where Vladimir Putin won. Although British Prime Minister
David Cameron congratulated Putin on his election victory over the phone
and expressed hope for close cooperation and a way out of the crisis, he
was clearly not optimistic about Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency.
Nevertheless, Putin’s return was marked by meetings and political
consultations at the level of ambassadors and employees of MFA of both
countries.
The main topics for negotiations in 2012 were issues of bilateral
cooperation, energy, increasing trade turnover, and regional issues, but
most of the attention was paid to the situation around Syria (Ofcial
Website of The President Of The Russian Federation, 2013). It is worth
noting that there were serious differences between the two States on the
Syrian issue. UK, as a conductor of Western interests, has been actively
engaged in diplomatic work with Moscow throughout the conict, trying to
persuade it to look at the Syrian crisis “through the eyes” of the West (RIA,
2012).
The authorities of the UK explained their interest in Syria, primarily to
protect the right of the Syrian people for a peaceful democratic existence,
which he is not able to provide the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
But the UK undoubtedly had other interests in Syria and the region. Britain
tried to use the emergence of training bases for jihadists in Northern Syria
to substantiate a threat to its national security. As for the interests that are
not publicly advertised, the following trends can be observed. First, there
was clearly an interest in the UK and the West as a whole in strengthening
their inuence on the countries of the Middle East region, the desire to
strengthen their military-strategic and geopolitical positions there. Second,
resolving the Syrian conict in favor of the West would increase pressure
on Iran, which both the US and the UK were interested. Third, the UK was
318
Vasil Timerjanovich Sakaev, Oksana Sergeyevna Demianko y Rushana Alfredovna Faizullina
The Dynamic of Developing of the Relations between Russia and Great Britain during the
President Vladimir Putin’s Third Term (2012-2018)
interested in access to Syrian oil and control of oil ows passing through the
country (Muradyan, 2012).
The UK has been putting diplomatic pressure on Russia to accept
Western projects for a Syrian settlement more favourably. However,
Russian diplomacy, which has already learned lessons from the Libyan
crisis, continued to pursue its strategic line. In General, Russia blocked
three UN Security Council resolutions that were fully supported by the
British government.
However, all these differences pale in comparison with the Ukrainian
crisis, which has so increased the degree of tension in Russo-British
relations that it has reached a critical point. The armed conict in Ukraine
caused an extremely wide international response and, most importantly,
it was negative for Russia. The situation worsened after the annexation
of Crimea by Russia in 2014, which was not recognized by most of the
international community (BBC, 2019). The Russian leadership, justifying
the fact of annexation of Crimea, referred to the UN Charter and the 1970
Declaration on principles of international law, which enshrined the right
of Nations to self-determination. According to the Russian leadership,
this was implemented in extreme conditions in a situation where the right
to self-determination could not be realized within Ukraine. In addition,
Russia appealed to the precedent of recognizing the unilateral Declaration
of sovereignty in Kosovo (Ofcial Website Of The Permanent Mission Of
Russia To UNESCO, 2014).
The events of 2014 showed that the UK is quietly using sanctions as a
tool of foreign policy. The UK was one of the rst countries to condemn the
annexation of Crimea and put forward charges against Russia for interfering
in the Internal Affairs of Ukraine. London suspended licenses for direct
deliveries to Russia of military items that could be used against Ukraine,
imposed nancial sanctions, and banned investment in the Peninsula.
Cooperation with Russia in the energy and military spheres was limited.
Several companies were also sanctioned, as well as some politicians and
businessmen (Kommersant, 2015).
The British government has repeatedly stated that the EU should be
more wary of Putin than, for example, ISIL, since Russia’s seizure of Crimea
was the rst forcible annexation of a European country’s territory since
1945. Boris Johnson even wrote a special article accusing Russia of violating
International Law (Johnson, 2018). Even 5 years after the reunication of
Crimea with Russia, the UK continued to criticize Moscow for this step.
According to British Foreign Minister, Jeremy Hunt, his country will never
recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea (Interfax, 2019).
Since 2016, the UK has become more focused on events taking place
inside the country, where dissatisfaction with EU membership has increased
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 315-322
amid the crisis. It is known that the UK decided to leave the EU after
the referendum in 2016. It is worth noting that Russia was interested in
restoring full-edged relations with the UK, but the possible problems due
to Brexit for European countries were more important to Russia than Brexit
itself. According to Putin, the implementation of Brexit will undoubtedly
affect Russia in political terms to a minimal extent, but this event will have
an impact on the world economy ().
The fall in the value of the pound due to Brexit may attract more
Russian companies to Britain, as well as cause an inux of Russian players
to the London stock exchange. In this case, it will obviously entail further
simplication of visa policy and expansion of business contacts, which may
in the future contribute to the improvement of Russian-British political
relations. However, Russia may lose its planned foreign exchange earnings,
as Gazprom and its Nord Stream-2 project may suffer the most. It soon
became clear that the UK was determined to maintain the “Crimean”
sanctions against Russia even in the event of Brexit (Deutsche Welle, 2016).
The British government in an ultimatum demanded that Moscow
admit to involvement in the attempt or conrm that it had lost control of
its chemical developments of a military nature. Russia did not respond to
the ultimatum, and Britain later submitted the incident to the UN Security
Council for discussion.
But the main blow was already dealt to the already fragile political
relations: the complete rejection of high-level contacts and the expulsion of
23 Russian diplomats from the country, after which relations fell to a record
low. Moscow’s response was to mirror the expulsion of the same number
of employees of the British diplomatic mission, revoke consent to open the
Consulate General in St. Petersburg and close the British Council in Russia.
The UK responded by preparing a package of tough new sanctions (TASS,
2016). In turn, the Russian side offered to conduct a joint investigation of
the incident, but, as is known, the UK ignored these initiatives and denied
access to the Skripals to Russian diplomats (RIA, 2016).
Unfortunately, 2018 turned out to be quite critical for bilateral relations.
In November 2018, Russia was again criticized by the UK over an incident in
the Kerch Strait. In October 2018, the European Parliament called Russia’s
actions a “de facto blockade” of the Strait (The Incident in the Kerch Strait:
Who’s right?, 2018). As a result, the EU increased sanctions “in connection
with actions that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty
and independence of Ukraine” (BBC, 2019).
To sum up, we can conclude that a series of events, undoubtedly dealt a
strong blow to the bilateral political relations, which by the end of the third
term of President Vladimir Putin was at a very low level. Despite the fact
that the economies of both countries were still open to cooperation.
320
Vasil Timerjanovich Sakaev, Oksana Sergeyevna Demianko y Rushana Alfredovna Faizullina
The Dynamic of Developing of the Relations between Russia and Great Britain during the
President Vladimir Putin’s Third Term (2012-2018)
Our results correspond to the conclusions of a number of researchers. As
we have already pointed out above, since 2014, UK has actively supported
the policy of sanctions. We can agree that this was primarily due to claims
to counter the “Russian threat” in the Baltic region, Ukraine and in Syria
(Andreeva, 2018). In previous years, the US strategy usually helped to
“push” its allies, including the UK, to take a tougher position towards Russia
(Penkovtsev and Shibanova, 2015).
As T. N. Andreeva points out, Theresa May strongly opposed D. Trump’s
agreement with the Russian policy of keeping B. Assad as the head of Syria,
which the previous American administration did not agree with for many
years (Andreeva, 2018).
Nevertheless, in our opinion, Russia and the UK still have some
overlapping vectors of foreign policy interests, for example, in countering
the risks of radical Islamism in the Middle East (Beloglazov, 2015).
In our view, the crisis of the UK’s political institutions can also have
an impact on improving Russo-British relations. O. Kharitonova’s research
shows a decrease in citizens’ condence in political institutions and political
forces in the UK against the background of the protracted process of leaving
the EU (Haritonova, 2020). Although this is not currently observed, in the
future, the search for answers to the challenges of Brexit may well push the
British establishment to nd ways to normalize relations with Russia.
Our position is in tune with the results of the study by E. S. Khesin,
who stressed that the decision to leave the EU caused a decline in economic
growth in the UK, starting in 2017, it creates uncertainties that lend a
“window of opportunity” for further technological transformation of the
country’s economy, which can negatively affect its competitiveness in the
world (Hesin, 2018). Increasing competition for markets in developing
countries dooms the British economy to search for ways to overcome
articial sanctions barriers in relations with Russia (Glushkova et al.,
2019). This creates an additional economic interest in establishing normal
trade and economic relations with Russia. Economic bilateral relations can
theoretically become a kind of “locomotive” that pulls political relations
between countries.
Conclusions
In general, we have concluded that, despite the deepest crisis in modern
Russo-British relations, we nevertheless see certain opportunities for their
normalization in the future, given the impact of the pandemic factor on the
world economy. Such potential opportunities are indicated by a number
of objective circumstances. The crisis that was going through the bilateral
relations in 2012-2018. and the negative consequences of which we are still
seeing can be overcome relatively quickly under certain conditions.
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CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 315-322
In general, the study obtained interesting results about the nature and
dynamics of Russian-British relations in 2012-2018, which can be useful
for researchers to analyze factors and trends in the development of bilateral
relations between Russia and the UK and their prediction in the future.
Acknowledgements
The work is performed according to the Russian Government Program
of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University.
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