Russia's Foreign Minister compared relations with Britain to a Shakespearean tragedy today over the murder of the dissident spy Alexander Litvinenko.

Sergei Lavrov turned to a quotation from Hamlet as he accused the British government of plotting against Russia by giving asylum in London to critics of President Vladimir Putin.

"Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me," Mr Lavrov said, quoting Hamlet's address to Guildenstern in Act 3 Scene 2 of the play.

Addressing students at Moscow's elite Foreign Relations Institute, he said that Britain had become involved in political intrigues against Russia by sheltering "certain odious individuals" such as the billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky.

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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

• Litvinenko murder suspect blames Berezovsky

• Russia expels top British trade official

"It expected in earnest to get the right to press buttons in Russia's domestic politics. In the end, willingly or unwillingly, London became a party to intrigues and provocations against Russia," Mr Lavrov said.

The Foreign Minister's quotation is intriguing because Hamlet is confronting his school friend Guildenstern, who has been sent to spy on him by the King he suspects of poisoning his father. It suggests that Russia regards Britain as a friend that is being used by opponents of the Kremlin to poison their relationship.

Students of diplomatic relations might also be alarmed by Mr Lavrov's choice of play. Famously, Shakespeare's drama ends with the stage littered with dead bodies, while Hamlet outwits the King to have Guildenstern executed in England.

Mr Lavrov's selection of Hamlet is also laced with irony, as the King's principal adviser is called Polonius. Mr Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London last November and accused Mr Putin of murdering him in a dramatic deathbed statement.

Mr Lavrov said that Russia sought a "true mutually beneficial partnership" with Britain and he regretted the chill in relations over the Litvinenko affair, which provoked the first tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats for 11 years in July.

He accused London of indulging in "noisy propaganda" against Andrei Lugovoy, the man British authorities accuse of poisoning Mr Litvinenko, because it lacked convincing evidence of his guilt.

In a wide-ranging lecture, Mr Lavrov also warned that Russia regarded the fate of Kosovo and American plans to build a missile defence shield as "red line" issues that could trigger a confrontation with the West.

Russia opposes plans by the US and European Union to back independence for Kosovo from Serbia and has reacted furiously to the proposed defence shield in eastern Europe.

"It should be clear that much as Russia avoids confrontation in its foreign policy there are certain so-called red lines for us when our national security or the international order are threatened," Mr Lavrov said.

"The plans of deploying bases of the US global missile defense system in eastern Europe and the settlement in Kosovo, for instance, belong to such issues."

Mr Lavrov warned the West that Moscow's position was firm, adding: "Russia is not trying to bargain and our foreign partners must realize that."

But he went on to dismiss western concerns about a new Russian threat as a result of the "rapid rebirth of this country as a leading world nation". Mr Lavrov added: "Certain political circles in the West were not prepared for such a course of developments and do not have action plans ready for this. However, this doesn't mean that a new myth of the Russian threat should be invented."

Russia sought to play a balancing role in world affairs based on peaceful coexistence, international law and collective security. Conflicts had to be resolved by political and diplomatic means.

"For 300 years Russia has been carrying a significant part of the burden of maintaining a balance in European and world politics and when we shirked this responsibility, it caused a malaise in European politics and led the continent to catastrophe," he said.

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