In the throes of a terrible death, Alexander Litvinenko had no doubt who was ultimately responsible for his condition: “The howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.”

Failure to hand over Andrei Lugovoy, the former KGB agent, accused of Litvinenko’s murder, amply justifies the expulsion of four Russian diplomats from London this week. The unspecified “serious consequences” threatened from Moscow should be ignored, but also exploited. Unjustified as any retaliation would be, it would confirm the destructive bent of policy under Vladimir Putin. The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, states the obvious when declaring that the Government neither sought nor welcomed the altercation with Moscow. Yet it ought to stimulate an overdue reassessment of our foreign policy aims and alliances.

The murder of Litvinenko is not an obscure dispute unrelated to our interests. His fate replicated that of other opponents of Putin’s regime – most obviously the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered last October. But this time the victim was a British citizen, killed by unspeakable means in our capital city. The Government must remain obdurate about the extradition of Lugovoy first because it is our affair, and secondly because justice will be served no other way. The former KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky stated bluntly of Litvinenko’s murder: “Of course it is state-sponsored. He was such an obvious enemy.” There are, to say the least, grounds for scepticism that the Russian state system will be disinterested in its dealings with the accused.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Grushko, has declared that the British Government’s response would complicate anti-terrorist and security policies. The issue is first about criminal justice, but one of the incidental benefits of confronting the Kremlin will be to expose the fiction behind Mr Grushko’s remarks.

At his summit with Mr Putin in 2001, George Bush declared: “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” As is always likely when inferring information from that source, the spirit world deceived. Mr Putin’s rule has been marked by thuggishness and obstructionism. Recall his meddling in the Ukraine; and his encouragement of Iran’s nuclear deception and opposition to effective sanctions.

Among the failures of the Bush Administration has been a gratuitously abrasive diplomacy with European allies combined with an unreasoning trust in Mr Putin’s intentions. Given new and better leadership in France and Germany, and confirmation of appalling and possibly criminal leadership in the Kremlin, our Government has every reason to stand firm in demanding justice.

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