There were two aspects of the Litvinenko Inquiry report, released yesterday, that surprised me. First, Sir Robert Owen, the Chairman of the Inquiry, having pulled no punches in stating who he thought had committed the murder in 2006, then went on to link the crime to President Putin in the strongest terms he was able to, given he was not speaking in a court of law.

This I find interesting, not only because I happen to believe it is correct (which you are quite at liberty to write-off as my love of Britannia and Pavlovian defence of the establishment). Apart from that, I find it interesting because of the difficult position it leaves the British Government in, a point I have alluded to in earlier blog posts about this inquiry (Parting Shots, Reading the Signals, Enemy at the Gates, Deeper Issues Deeper Questions, Small Details Big Impact).

If Sir Robert had really been acting as a government stooge he would have reined in his more inflammatory conclusions so as to leave the Prime Minister some wriggle room. David Cameron could then have huffed a few statements here and puffed a couple of asset freezes there, as he retreated behind a smokescreen of Davos-Migrant crisis-EU Referendum headlines, hand-wringing his way out of sight. So we can be reasonably assured of Sir Robert’s independence.

As it is, Mr Cameron has had to confront the issue head-on. And by issue, I mean the realities of global power politics. In his response, he was critical of Russia and then said: “But do we, at some level, go on having some sort of relationship with them because we need a solution to the Syria crisis? Yes we do…with clear eyes and a cold heart”. And that’s the nub of it: right now, there is greater need for a workable relationship with Russia, than there is to be seen to stand as a beacon of justice in the world. It’s called Realpolitik; one of the more enduring ideas Russia has imported from Germany.

Without a court of law, in which evidence could have been challenged and the accused offered a chance to explain their actions, the Inquiry was never going to be able to prove anything or hold any person or state entity to account. So, as expected, Russia has been all but accused of illegal actions, but by having to load the report with ‘probably’ and ‘possibly’ numerous times, they are able to dismiss any accusation of foul play.

They knew this all along, of course. Which led to my second eyebrow-raising moment. I was expecting a more sophisticated and nuanced response to the report from Russian officials and media. In typical fashion there was an immediate attempt to muddy the waters sufficiently to obscure the overwhelmingly compelling evidence.

The Russian Ambassador to the UK, Alexander Yakovenko, dutifully went through the motions of rebutting the report’s accusations in what, were it a Hollywood spy movie, would have been described as a ‘dialled-in’ performance. Andrei Lugovoy, one of the two alleged assassins, suggested Sir Robert Owen had “gone mad”. And Russia Today then waded in by casting aspersions on the Inquiry and its Chairman. They stated:

The report stresses that its conclusions are based on many witness opinions that “would not be admissible as evidence” and that in his report Sir Robert was not bound by strict procedural rules that apply to court hearings.

I won’t play ‘he-said-you said’ over this, all I’d ask is that you follow this link to the Inquiry report and have a look at the relevant passage, paragraph 9.205 on page 242, and make your own mind up. As I said: an unsophisticated response. (In none of the rebuttals will you find an explanation for the trail of polonium-210 linked to Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun.)

So where does it all leave us? I think the Inquiry has produced the most accurate findings it could, given the limitations of the proceedings. We can be reasonably sure we now know what happened and why. The reality of the relationship between nation states had been laid bare for all to see, if it was ever in doubt. And a spotlight has been thrown on the regressive, reductionist and brutish state of Russian politics in 2016.

What happens next, I think, is up to Mr Putin. Mr Cameron cannot take any meaningful action, so Russia need not damage international relations further. In a few weeks, disappointingly but realistically, most of the world will move on. But if Russia miscalculates in Ukraine, Estonia (which hosts a sizeable minority of Russian nationals that Mr Putin has talked of ‘needing protection’) or Syria in the near future, the demands for some sort of concerted diplomatic action could become overwhelming.