Why even Vladimir Putin has paid tribute to the Queen

It is a mark of the Queen’s standing that even Vladimir Putin, in the midst of an undeclared economic and political war between Russia and the West, sent King Charles III his ‘deepest condolences’ after Her Majesty’s death. The Russian leader noted that:

“‘The most important events in the recent history of the United Kingdom are inextricably linked with the name of Her Majesty. For many decades, Elizabeth II rightfully enjoyed the love and respect of her subjects, as well as authority on the world stage.’

Calling it a ‘heavy, irreparable loss,’ he wished the King ‘courage and perseverance’ and sent ‘the words of sincere sympathy and support to the members of the royal family and all the people of Great Britain.’

On one level, it would be easy simply to dismiss this as hypocritical cant and the meaningless language of international diplomacy. Yet that is not all there is to it. Putin may seem a radical figure, out to upend the existing global order, but in his eyes it is the West – primarily the United States – which is trying to reshape the world to its advantage and force all others to bend the knee.

In this context (and, a cynic would add, when it suits him) he considers himself fundamentally conservative. Indeed, in many ways his worldview is a very nineteenth-century one. And while Queen Elizabeth II was hardly a nineteenth century ruler, her reign did in many ways represent a sense of stability, continuity and tradition that Putin believes – whether it is true or not – he is upholding.

Elizabeth was also the first reigning British monarch ever to set foot in Russia – even though, back in the sixteenth century, Tsar Ivan the Terrible had made a (not at all successful) offer of marriage to her predecessor Elizabeth I – with her state visit of 1994. She had met Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, as well as Putin when he visited the UK in 2003.

The Russian press has also been strikingly muted. The tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda called the Queen ‘the last living titan of the 20th century’ and Moskovsky Komsomolets even ran an article exploring the connections between the British and Russian dynasties and under what circumstances Charles could become head of the Imperial Russian house. (A lot of people would have to die first, he’d have to abdicate the British throne and convert to Russian Orthodoxy, so I think it’s safe to consider this unlikely.)

Considering some of the past bilious nonsense that has come from Russian propagandists, this is all a nice change. For example, back in February, arch TV propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov was claiming that the Queen, Charles and Prince Andrew were all trying to provoke a war between Russia and Ukraine to distract attention from royal scandals.

In part, this is because even propagandists sometimes know where to draw the line. Yet it also reflects the strange Anglophilia still strikingly present in Russia. In some ways, this manifests itself as a kind of Anglophobia, a continuing (and arguably quite heartening) belief that the United Kingdom remains Russia’s most subtle and devious foe, a view that even pre-dates the machinations of the nineteenth century’s ‘Great Game’ over Persia, India, and Afghanistan. I remember a conversation with a hardline Russian thinktanker who was holding forth over how Ukraine’s 2014 ‘Revolution of Dignity’ was all actually a CIA coup when he stopped and added, ‘but it was probably MI6’s idea in the first place.’ In this perfidious view, America has the money and the muscle, but Britain the brains.

But this is just part of a wider Russian fascination with Britain that is largely positive, and takes many forms – from a respect for our education system to a voracious appetite for our culture. More thoughtful Russians even hoped that our experiences navigating the end of empire might help their own country do the same.

In that context, while it will soon be washed away by the rhetoric of war, this brief interlude of respect for the woman some Russians called ‘Baba Liza’ or ‘Granny Liz’ is a momentary reminder that whatever the anger and bitterness of the moment, the United Kingdom and Russia are also bound by ties that have endured both before.