Gordon Brown moved quickly to try to repair Britain's relations with Russia today by congratulating Dmitri Medvedev on his election as president.

But Mr Brown pointedly failed to invite Mr Medvedev to Downing Street, underlining the continuing strains over the murder of the dissident former spy Alexander Litvinenko in London and Vladimir Putin's refusal to extradite the main suspect to Britain.

Relations plunged into the deep freeze when Britain expelled four Russian diplomats over Mr Putin's refusal to hand over Andrei Lugovoy for trial last year. The two leaders have been in contact only once since Mr Brown became Prime Minister, when Mr Putin called to congratulate him.

In a letter to Mr Medvedev, Mr Brown said that he looked forward to meeting the new Russian leader at the G8 Summit of major democracies in Japan in July. Mr Brown's spokesman said that Britain would judge Russia's new leadership "on its actions and the result of its actions". He added that Britain hoped to get Russia's cooperation "on a number of issues".

Hopes of a breakthrough in the Litvinenko case are likely to be disappointed, however. Mr Putin cited Russia's constitutional ban on extradition as the reason for refusing to turn over Mr Lugovoy and Mr Medvedev, a former law professor, will be certain to support that position.

His elevation to the presidency and Mr Putin's transfer to the role of Prime Minister means that Russia's state symbol of a double-headed eagle is now matched by a twin-headed government. Kremlin watchers now wait to see whether the two men also face in opposite directions or whether the division of power can work in a country long used to a single all-powerful "Tsar".

With 99.45 per cent of votes counted from yesterday's election, Mr Medvedev won an easy victory with 70.2 per cent. Gennady Zyuganov, the Communist Party candidate, was next with 17.8 per cent. The anti-Western nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky received 9.4 per cent and the little-known Andrei Bogdanov of the Democratic Party gained just 1.3 per cent of the vote.

Mr Medvedev, 42, pledged today to continue Mr Putin's policies when he is sworn in as President on May 7. He insisted that, as President, he would control foreign policy, defence and security services in line with Russia's Constitution, while Mr Putin oversaw the economy and social services as head of the government.

"The President's main office is in the Kremlin. The Prime Minister's permanent location is the White House (government headquarters)," he said.

Mr Medvedev's result was virtually identical to the 71 per cent share that Mr Putin gained at his re-election in 2004. The Central Election Commission said that a higher turnout of almost 70 per cent this time meant that more Russians backed Mr Medvedev, who gained 52 million votes compared to 49.6 million for Mr Putin.

Many of those who voted for Mr Medvedev, however, declared openly that they were supporting him as Mr Putin's chosen successor. They voted for Mr Medvedev to keep Mr Putin, believing that he would really remain in charge.

Mr Medvedev declared after his victory that his presidency would be "a direct continuation" of the Putin years, which have been marked by rapid economic growth, a clampdown on democratic freedoms and an increasingly belligerent attitude towards Russia's former Soviet neighbours and the West.

He appeared to confound expectations in the West that he would be less assertive in foreign relations than Mr Putin. He said: "We should pursue independent foreign policies, the ones we had in the past eight years, with the main goal of protecting our national interests on all fronts."

Gazprom underlined the sense of business-as-usual by announcing that it was cutting gas supplies to Ukraine by 25 per cent in a dispute over unpaid debts. Mr Medvedev was chairman of Gazprom until the election.

Mr Medvedev's victory was so predictable in a race tightly controlled by the Kremlin that many of Russia's leading newspapers did not even bother to make it their main story on Monday.

Kommersant and Nezavisimaya Gazeta led instead with reports on the violence in neighbouring Armenia after its disputed presidential election, while Novy Izvestiya preferred to focus on safety in Russia's civilian airlines.

Russia's stock markets were equally indifferent. Both the RTS and Micex indices were down about 2 per cent on news of weaker markets in Asia and the United States.

Observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) acknowledged that the election result reflected the popular will, but said that it fell well short of democratic standards.

"We believe there was not freedom in these elections," said Andreas Gross, head of the observer group. "The results of the presidential election...are a reflection of the will of an electorate whose democratic potential was unfortunately not tapped."

But observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States of former Soviet republics declared the election "free, open and transparent". Mission chief Nauryz Aidarov said: "There were certain shortcomings in the election but not many and they did not have an effect on...the outcome of the ballot."

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