THERE is clearly no prospect of Russia extraditing Novichok suspects Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

They will not face justice for the murder of Dawn Sturgess, the near-fatal poisoning of Charlie Rowley and the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

Or rather, they won’t unless we can persuade them to get on a plane voluntarily and hand themselves in.

Persuading them will be a hard job, of course, but I’m prepared to give it my best shot.

If anybody can get the following to the pair of remorseless state-sanctioned murderers, I’d be most grateful:

“Dear Alexander and Ruslan,

“The thought of returning to a country where you are wanted for indiscriminate murder probably seems ridiculous to you, but I suggest you consider one or two pertinent points.

“The fact that you were assigned such a mission suggests that you are fairly senior public servants. The fact that you completely failed in your objective of murdering the Skripals suggests you are thoroughly, slobberingly incompetent. This is not likely to endear you to your ultimate boss, that rather odd little man who is fond of posing on horseback and looks as though he’s been at the Botox more times than is advisable.

“That man is not known for his forgiving attitude when it comes to dealing with those who fail him. Put it this way - if any of your colleagues invite you out for a drink and offer you a lift to the pub, I’d think twice about accepting, especially if the route passes through a forest. By the time you realised the clanking sound from the boot was a set of shovels it would be too late.

“As incompetent senior public officials, it is your bad luck that you made your careers in Russia rather than here in Britain. For one thing, you probably wouldn’t have been asked to murder anybody here, and for another, your ineptitude would almost certainly have resulted in promotion rather than peril.

“The fact that you’ll be safer over here than in Russia is only one reason why you should come back.

“Another is that you wouldn’t have too much to fear by way of punishment here. If you monitor our media you’ll note that the complete stranger you thought nothing of murdering, and her friend who you came close to murdering, are seldom mentioned prominently in stories about the atrocity you committed.

“Indeed, far fewer British people could name Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley than could name the Skripals.

“That’s because Dawn and Charlie were troubled people whose personal demons put them on the fringes of society, so we prefer not to think about them.

“In any case, we’d be happy to provide you with expert legal advice, and even a half-decent barrister could get you off with a manslaughter conviction. After all, you didn’t intend to kill her - you just didn’t give a damn who died.

“With a bit of luck, you might even get the other charges reduced to something fairly insignificant if you played your cards right. Offer to plead guilty to a minor assault and claim you didn’t realise Novichok was so dangerous. It’s worth a punt.

“Even if you ended up with a raft of convictions for the full set of offences - murder and attempted murder - you’d almost certainly be out within a decade or two and could probably look forward to book deals and fairly lucrative careers on the chat show circuit.

“Anyway, here’s hoping that this reaches you as it leaves me. Oh, and I very much hope that Hell is hot enough for you when you finally get there.”