Russia has told the British Embassy’s senior trade official to leave the country in the tit-for-tat expulsions over the man accused of murdering Alexander Litvinenko, the dissident former spy.

Andrew Levi, the embassy’s economic counsellor, is one of four British diplomats ordered to leave Russia by Sunday. He was the embassy’s key figure in the recent Sakhalin-2 dispute, when Shell was forced to sell a controlling stake in the $22 billion (£11 million) oil-and-gas project to state-controlled Gazprom.

In a separate development, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow summoned Sir Anthony Brenton, the British Ambassador, yesterday to demand details of an alleged plot to murder the exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky.

An embassy spokesman confirmed that Sir Anthony met Alexander Grishko, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, who sought information about a Russian man reportedly deported from Britain last month. Sir Anthony reiterated Scotland Yard’s statement that the Russian had been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder on June 21 and deported by the immigration authorities two days later.

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BACKGROUND

• Lies and the spies: I must have justice

• Shadowy ex-KGB major takes cover

• Of course the Russians did it. They’re the experts

• The Litvinenko File

• Litvinenko was told that he was marked for death

Related Links

• Russia’s not your colony, says Putin

• Kremlin is condemned for Chechen massacre

• Litvinenko: clues point to Kremlin

The Foreign Ministry said that it expected an “exhaustive explanation” from Britain, adding that if the suspect really was Russian “then it raises the question of why British law enforcement agencies, in deporting someone who intended to commit a crime, not only failed to let the Russian authorities know but also didn’t supply his name”.

Mr Levi’s seniority has raised concerns in British business about a threat to trade relations after the dispute over the former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy, who is suspected of murdering Litvinenko. Britain expelled four Russian diplomats last week after the Kremlin refused to extradite Mr Lugovoy to London for allegedly killing Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210. Russia’s constitution bars extradition of citizens to face trial abroad and Mr Lugovoy protests that he is innocent.

Russia retaliated with four British expulsions. It was thought that the Foreign Ministry had singled out diplomats close to the end of their postings to signal Moscow’s reluctance to engage in a prolonged stand-off with London.

Mr Levi, however, is understood to have been in Moscow for less than two years. The Moscow Times reported that he had been the embassy’s key figure in the recent Sakhalin-2 dispute.

Mr Levi also sits on the advisory board of the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce. Stephen Dalziel, the chamber’s executive director, told The Times that the expulsion was regrettable but he hoped that a line would now be drawn under the whole affair.

“It is perhaps a warning shot across the bows that trade relations could suffer. But at a time when political relations have fallen to a post-Cold War low, trade relations have never been better.”

The convention is that a country retaliates in the same fashion when its diplomats are expelled. There has been no indication, however, that Britain ordered out anyone as senior as Mr Levi.

Sir Anthony declined to confirm or deny Mr Levi’s departure. Calls to Mr Levi’s office were met by an answering machine.

“The important thing in this is where Russia-UK relations go next,” the ambassador said. “Our firm intention is that our booming economic relationship continues to boom.”

British investment in Russia is rising sharply, despite Tony Blair’s warning last month that companies could be frightened away by concerns over the political climate.

Companies invested $11 billion last year, making Britain Russia’s largest single investor. Russia received $3.1 billion in direct British investment in the first three months of this year alone, almost nine times more than the $364 million invested by US companies.

Bilateral trade has grown to more than £10 billion a year and has been rising at an annual rate of about 20 per cent.

Two-way street

— Bilateral trade between Britain and Russia has increased by about 20 per cent a year since 2002 and topped £5 billion in 2005. British exports to Russia totalled more than £1.3 billion while Russia exported £4 billion to Britain

— Roughly half of Russia’s exports to Britain were energy-related and the country now supplies 44 per cent of Britain’s coal and 13.6 per cent of its oil

— About 400 British companies have expanded into Russia’s markets, investing a total of £2.7 billion in the country in 2005

— £15 billion was raised by Russian companies floating on the London Stock Exchange last year. Losing the 70 more flotations planned over the next two years would cost the City hundreds of millions of pounds

Sources: HM Revenue and Customs; US Energy Information Admisitration; UK DTI; Russo-British Chamber of Commerce; UK Tradeinfo

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