Up-to-Date Diplomatic Links.

Although relations were restored in 1929, continued distrust exacerbated by the Soviet purges made close collaboration impossible in the face of the rise of Fascism in the 1930s A new Stage of Russian – British Relationships.

Stalin's Policy. Then, last - minute talks between Britain and France on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other broke down in August 1939, just before the signing of the Nazi – Soviet nonaggression pact involving the partition of Poland and the Baltic States, and the outbreak of the Second World War. However, Stalin's policy of appeasement was also to fail as Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22 nd, 1941.

Churchill, p reviously best known in the Soviet Union for his militant anti – Communism, was now accepted as a loyal ally. Stalin, widely represented in the West as a heartless dictator, now became cuddly «Uncle Joe». In the Soviet Union, although conformity remained the order of the day, the purges ceased. Stalin and Churchill.

Big Three. Big Three decided how to win the war and to shape the postwar world. In an informal meeting with Stalin in October Churchill had already made the so-called «percentages deal», assigning spheres of influence in Eastern Europe : 90 % for the USSR in Romania and for the UK in Greece, and so on.

The Cold War. I t was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the UK and the Soviet Union and their allies from the mid 1940s until the early 1990s.

With the arrival of perestroika in 1985, the prime minister Margaret Thatcher famously observed that the West could do business with the new Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Not enough of it ensued, however, and the collapse of the Soviet Union came in Perestroika.

Queen's Visit to Russia. The Queen visited Russia in 1994.But it will also further enhance his standing among the Russian people, which is all very useful just months before important parliamentary and presidential elections. A speech made by The Queen at the State Banquet in the Kremlin on 18 October 1994, during the first ever State Visit by a UK monarch to Russia. Boris Yeltsin was President and host at the occasion

At the beginning of the new millennium, serious differences over Chechnya and Iraq apart, Great Britain and Russia as represented by Blair and Putin were more amicable than at any time since the end of the Second World War. Vladimir Putin & Tony Blair. In an open letter to Mr. Blair, Human Rights Watch said that as one of Russia's "most important partners'' his intervention could make an "important difference in the lives of thousands of Chechens''.

Putin & His Historic Visit to Britain Though several Russian heads of state, including Mr. Putin, have come here regularly they were not treated as guests of the Queen.

During h is stay at Buckingham Palace, his day in Edinburgh, his visits to the Tower of London, to Greenwich and St Paul's Cathedral Putin was treated like a tsar. Tsar Treatment.