Vladimir Putin won't take kindly to having a gun held to his head
The PM is saying if Russia "got away with" the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, it won't this time, says Sky's Lisa Holland.
Tuesday 13 March 2018 13:57, UK
Hillary Clinton calls him the "manspreader" who doesn't respect women - not a great indicator of someone likely to want to pacify Theresa May in a hurry.
The failed presidential candidate and former US secretary of state says of the Russian leader: "When I sat with Vladimir Putin in meetings he looked more like one of those guys on the subway who spreads their legs wide, encroaching on everyone else's space as if to say, 'I take what I want and I have so little respect for you that I'm going to act as if I'm lounging at home in my bathrobe'.
"They call it manspreading - that was Putin."
Having been deployed to Russia in the wake of the Sergei Skripal poisoning I happened to be listening to the audio book What Happened - Hillary Clinton's account of the US election in 2016, which she lost to Donald Trump.
It was an election famously dogged by claims of Russian interference in favour of Mr Trump. There can be few in the world more conscious (or sore) about the notion of Russia dabbling in the affairs of a sovereign nation than Mrs Clinton, or au fait with the levels Mr Putin will go to to get what he wants.
In the wake of the Salisbury attack, Mrs Clinton's words take on a fresh poignancy, recounting in her book: "I've dealt with a lot of male leaders in my life but Putin is in a class by himself. A former KGB spy with a taste for over the top macho theatrics.
"A public inquiry in the UK concluded that Putin probably approved the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, one of his enemies, in London in 2006, by poisoning his tea with palonium 210.
"The Russian leader has emerged in the popular imagination as an arch villain straight out of a James Bond movie. Yet he's also perennially misunderstood and under estimated."
Barack Obama once compared Vladimir Putin to a bored kid at the back of a classroom, saying "he's got that kind of slouch".
George W Bush famously said after looking Putin in the eye that he found him "very straightforward and trustworthy and was able to get a sense of his soul".
On that, Mrs Clinton says: "My somewhat tongue in cheek response was he (Putin) was a KGB agent. By definition he doesn't have a soul."
So the stage is set. Theresa May insists she means business this time. In other words, if Russia 'got away with it' over the killing of Litvinenko, it won't this time over the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter.
Yet in Russia, there's a sense almost of bored shoulder shrugging at Britain's incensed stance. Moreover, how could Britain have reached its conclusion so quickly? So quickly, in fact, that all this is part of a British campaign to discredit Russia in the run-up to its presidential election.
It sounds familiar.
Within minutes of Mrs May's statement in the Commons, Russia likened her performance to a "circus show". It's not really the kind of language you'd expect one G8 nation to respectfully say to another, no matter what the allegation. Not much indication of co-operation, let alone acknowledgement of guilt.
Putin is highly skilled and exceedingly well practised in the art of playing games - in particular hardball. There's a deadline but he won't take kindly to having a gun held to his head.
Talking of guns - an analogy being used in the Russian media is this: if somebody somewhere in the world was shot with a Kalashnikov rifle just because the rifle was made in Russia, would that make Russia responsible?
Understand that and you get a sense of how Russia seems to be playing this.