Gordon Brown, Britain’s prime minister, is set to hold his first one-to-one meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president-elect, later this year in a sign that both London and Moscow are working to put their bilateral relationship on a new and improved footing.

For the last two years, Britain and Russia have experienced their worst bilateral relations in many years, following the murder of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London and the closure of British Council offices in two Russian cities earlier this year.