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Commentators reflect on the first British prime ministerial visit to Russia for six years.

Before the meeting, Britain's former ambassador to Russia that Russia has strong reasons to co-operate with the West:

"If she is to diversify her economy away from oil and gas, she will need Western capital and technology. In the oil and gas sector, it is Western (and notably British) companies, not Russian ones, that have the technology necessary to get to Russia's increasingly remote reserves. And key Russians know that, if Russia is really to prosper, she needs to create a much cleaner and more transparent business and legal environment.
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"I am constantly struck by the number of businessmen I meet who cheerfully take on the challenges offered by India or China but who blench when I suggest they might do business in Russia. Russia knows she needs to draw on Western experience to overcome such attitudes."

The the desirability of British visas gives the UK some bargaining power:

"A big part of the explanation for this stress on changing Russian behaviour lies in the fact that Britain does not have much ground to give on some of the dossiers that most exercise Moscow, starting with Litvinenko-related sanctions that make it really quite hard for Russian officials to obtain British visas. The Russians hate the visa sanctions, and more generally complain that compared to continental European visas, British business visas are slower and harder to obtain.
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"Mr Cameron offered to start discussions on fast-track business visas for applicants willing to pay a higher fee: the oligarch express, as it may come to be known. But when it comes to the official visa sanctions, the British side feels unable to move."

However, the UK-Russian relations will not warm unless the UK co-operates on the case on the death of Alexander Litvinenko:

"But it is the Litvinenko case that is the insuperable obstacle. At his press conference with Medvedev Cameron tried to avoid getting bogged down in the scandal. But he made clear that Britain is unwilling to resume co-operation with the FSB, the successor agency of the KGB - of which Putin once was the boss. British officials remain convinced Litvinenko's killing had an FSB dimension...
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"Until Britain caves into the FSB's cooperation demand, relations between London and Moscow will remain strained. And time is on Russia's side. Most observers expect Putin to return to the presidency during elections in 2012, elbowing Medvedev aside. It is entirely possible he will still be in power in 2020, long after Cameron and his coalition have faded into history."

that co-operating with Russia for £215m in trade deals hardly seems worth it:

"For the Litvinenko affair is but the tip of a rather large Arctic iceberg whose full, submerged extent is not widely appreciated in Britain or in other EU states, notably Germany, blinded by energy dependency and other unlovely manifestations of 'realpolitik'...
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"Nor is it that long since Britain was complaining about what officials called a "huge Russian intelligence operation in the UK" and the two countries were expelling each other's diplomats. Is Cameron suggesting that this espionage problem, like the Putin regime's human rights record, can now be safely ignored? Are Putin's policies in the Muslim Caucasus, where his mishandling of Chechen separatism has kindled something akin to a region-wide conflict, now a matter for British silence or, worse, indifference? And what of Russia's continuing obstructionism on Syria and its ongoing nuclear collaboration with Iran? It's a lot to swallow for a handful of dodgy contracts."

Russia wants to repeat its past espionage successes:

"Moscow is itself fighting old intelligence battles, albeit with new weapons and new targets, and a new determination. The ideological impetus may have changed, but Russia is currently engaged in a serious intelligence assault on the West. The murder of Litvinenko, and Moscow's refusal to extradite the man suspected of killing him, is only one aspect of a new round of muscle-flexing by an emboldened Russian intelligence service."