Britain extradites man to Russia for the first time Maxim Vintskevich, 32, who is suspected of beating an acquaintance who later died from his injuries in St Petersburg in 2005, was flown into Moscow early on Friday. Mr Vintskevich moved to the UK after the alleged crime and was reportedly arrested by British police in 2011 after Russian authorities issued an international arrest warrant. The Kremlin has frequently expressed its anger that Britain refuses to extradite UK-based Russians whom it accuses of crimes, such as the controversial tycoon Boris Berezovsky and the Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev. Earlier this month, it emerged that Andrei Borodin, a wealthy banker suspected of involvement in a £270m fraud in Moscow, had been afforded political asylum in the UK after claiming he was the victim of a campaign of political persecution led by Russia's prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev. Mr Medvedev's spokesman criticised Britain for granting asylum, saying it was allowing a "simple ruse" whereby alleged criminals got refuge in the UK by pretending to be victims of Russian state oppression. Officials in Moscow seemed hopeful the handing over of Mr Vintskevich signalled a new approach from London. They called it the first successfully completed UK-to-Russia extradition for "many decades" while some media reported it was the first ever, "including Tsarist-era requests." "What looks like an ordinary event at first sight is actually a breakthrough in our bilateral relations," said Saak Karapetyan, director of the international cooperation department at Russia's prosecutor general's office, adding: "In my opinion, new instances of extradition will be reported soon." The case comes ahead of a meeting on security issues in London next week between Foreign Secretary William Hague and Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, and their Russian counterparts, Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Shoigu.