Results of opinion poll published in Britain on Monday, April 23, show that British businessmen are very wary of their Russian counterparts and are worried about the growth of Russian investment in the UK. Poll results were published by the Financial Times.

The survey, which was released on the eve of the Russian Economic Forum, London’s premier Russia-oriented conference, shows nearly half of those polled (49 percent) think Russian investment in the UK is “a bad thing”. Some 33 percent believe Russian business culture is different from British and that Russian takeovers of UK companies could damage public trust in business.

The research, carried out by YouGov in the UK and Russian Axis, a Russian polling agency, in Russia, comes amid signs of growing difficulties in relations between London and Moscow.

A round of talks on the eve of partnership negotiations between Russia and the European Union ended in deadlock on Monday after the two sides failed to end their long-running dispute over meat exports from EU member Poland. The European side insists that Moscow’s position is as much about politics as food safety and that the dispute is a symptom of wider tensions on issues such as energy, human rights and the future of Kosovo.

Russian officials are furious with the lack of British response to the anti-Kremlin outbursts of Boris Berezovsky, the exiled oligarch. Britain is frustrated at what it sees as a lack of cooperation by Russia in the investigation of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy.

British business people are also concerned about the risks of doing business in Russia at a time when the authorities are intervening actively in commercial life.
In the latest development, top Russian business leaders planning to attend the Russian Economic Forum pulled out at the last minute after the Kremlin asked senior government officials to withdraw.

According to the YouGov poll, British business people find their Russian counterparts arrogant (62 percent), lawless (59 percent) and unreliable (47 percent).

Meanwhile, Russia business people polled in the Russian part of the survey criticized “the aloofness of the British establishment”.

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