Russia gave official approval yesterday for a landmark exhibition of paintings to travel to London for display at the Royal Academy.

The state culture agency, Roskultura, announced that four museums had received licences to send the artworks to Britain, ending a row that had threatened to wreck the show. The dispute had been seen as the latest episode in the increasingly bitter relationship between London and Moscow since President Putin refused to extradite the man wanted by Britain for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

The Royal Academy now faces a race against time to open the From Russia exhibition on schedule. The first shipments of artworks originally had been due to arrive in Britain yesterday. Anna Kolupayeva, of Roskultura, said: “The consent has been given. Hopefully, we will be able to open the exhibition on January 26.” The exhibition faced cancellation last month when Russia said that it could not accept British guarantees that works would be protected against seizure. Some of the paintings are claimed by heirs of collectors who owned them before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, when they were expropriated by the communists.

Britain was among the few European countries without a specific antiseizure law. Russia had said before that it would not lend works to countries without such laws after 55 paintings held by the Pushkin Museum were briefly impounded in 2005 while on loan in Switzerland.

James Purnell, the Culture Secretary, tried to save the exhibition by fast-tracking antiseizure legislation that had been due to come into force next month so that it became effective from January 7. The effort paid off yesterday, the first day back at work in Moscow after the new year holiday, when the culture agency announced that it was satisfied. The 120 artworks are now expected to travel to London from Germany, where they have been on display in Düsseldorf.

From Russia: French and Russian Master Paintings 1870-1925 from Moscow and St Petersburg draws on work from the four principal Russian state collections – the Pushkin Museum, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Hermitage Museum and the Russian Museum – and explores the links between French and Russian art. The star of the exhibition is The Dance by Matisse, which will be on show alongside works by Renoir and Gaugin, Kandinsky and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

The resolution of the dispute will do little to thaw relations between Russia and Britain, which are at their worst since the end of the Cold War. The two sides are heading for a fresh show-down next week over the fate of the British Council. Russia has ordered it to close offices in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, which it claims are operating illegally.

Moscow has linked the attack on the council to tensions over Mr Putin’s refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoy to face trial for the murder of Litvinenko, a dissident former Russian state security officer who was poisoned in London in November 2006.

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