The Litvinenko Affair: Murder Most Opaque

In its Friday's special report, The Economist wonders "what a poisoned Russian agent tells us about the way that Russia is governed". Its article offers a broad range of theories of who was responsible for Litvinenko's death but the main point remains that at the end of the day, the 'who' may not be as important. What is important, however, is that the case actually caused the controversy it did and put Vladimir Putin's Russia under microscope.

As seems to be the case, Litvinenko was nothing like the Russian KGB superagent turned human rights advocate as he was portrayed in Western press. "He was not really a spy, as he has been described, but worked for domestic units of the FSB, one of the KGB's post-Soviet successors. He has been labelled a defector; but few people took the information he brought out of Russia when he fled to Britain seriously." However, his death marked a drastic turn in how Russia is viewed. The war in Chechnya, the contract murders in Moscow and the consolidation of power in the hands of the siloviki is one issue. The fact that the perception exists that the Russian state actually could reach out and assassinate a British citizen in London (regardless whether it actually was the case) is another issue. But the two cannot be viewed in vacuum. Litvinenko's murder was the proverbial last drop that caused the bucket to overflow. All of the sudden, the situation in Russia cannot be ignored any longer. Putin's shortcomings that were conveniently pushed aside when we wanted Russian oil and natural gas and when we wanted to be part of Moscow's stock and real estate market boom are suddenly exposed as never before.

Ex-Spy 'Was Poisoned In October'

A key witness in the radiation death of former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko claimed the poisoning took place earlier than is widely believed, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
Andrei Lugovoi, a security agent-turned-businessman who met with Litvinenko at a London hotel on November 1, the day Litvinenko suspected he was poisoned, said in an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets tabloid that he and Litvinenko were poisoned on October 16.
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BlogSpotting

La Russophobe: Another Russian Speaks on the Litvinenko Killing, Another Exclusive LR Translation
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Kremlin Frets About Blame In Litvinenko Case

The Kremlin said yesterday it was "extremely worried" about damage to Russia's reputation from the Litvinenko affair and the readiness of western media to blame Moscow as it launched a public relations offensive intended to challenge presumptions of official Russian involvement in the death of the former KGB officer, The Financial Times report.
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Intrigue Over Spy’s Death Spreads to Germany

According to The New York Times, the German authorities announced Sunday that they had begun a criminal investigation of a Russian businessman after finding traces of polonium 210 around Hamburg that date back to Oct. 28 — four days before he met in London Alexander Litvinenko. It has added to suspicions that the case is connected to the shadowy world of agents and businessmen, defectors, spies and exiles let loose by the dissolution of the K.G.B., and still entwined with successor agencies.

The man the Germans have put at the center of scrutiny is Dmitri V. Kovtun, a 41-year-old Russian who was a student in the 1980s at the Supreme Soviet Higher Military Command School, where many students went on to serve in the K.G.B. He has been in a Moscow hospital since Dec. 7, suffering from exposure to polonium. There are conflicting reports about his health; Interfax, the Russian news agency, reported he was in critical condition, but his lawyer later disputed that.
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The Spy Who Knew Too Much

The investigation into the death of a Russian dissident in London heats up and sheds an ugly light on Vladimir Putin's rule - The Time Magazine published a seven-page article on December 10, examining the multiple facets of the Litvinenko affair.
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The Jail Letters Sent To Warn Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy murdered in London, was sent a series of letters warning him of a plot to kill him, The Sunday Telegraph reveals. In the letters, passed exclusively to The Telegraph, Mikhail Trepashkin, a former state security agent jailed in 2003 after trying to expose corruption, warned Litvinenko that his life and those of his wife and children were in danger from Russian hit men. Read more...

Russia Presses UK For Role In Litvinenko Probe

The Financial Times report that Russian prosecutors are exerting pressure on UK authorities to allow their own investigators to fly to London to probe the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, in a move that threatens to raise political and diplomatic tensions over the case.
Russian authorities have requested access to individuals they want to question in London, including Boris Berezovsky and Akhmed Zakayev, who have declared themselves associates and friends of Litvinenko. Read more...

Russia Threatens International Journalists With Libel Suits Over Litvinenko's Case

Russia Today, Moscow's English-language satellite television channel, reported that Russian government officials are considering filing libel suits against international journalists over their reporting on the poisoning death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Read more...

When an Ex-K.G.B. Man Says They’re Out to Get Him...

In the Sunday edition of the New York Times, Scott Shane, reflects on the increasing influence of the KGB and its return to long abolished deadly practices.
For decades, any K.G.B. officer who defected was automatically tried and sentenced to death, and officers overseas were expected to carry out the sentences. In the late 1960s, when Yuri Andropov became K.G.B. chief, the practice faded. Now the practice may be back and playing out in a world where former K.G.B. officers, with murky continuing relations with the successor agency, are found in many countries. Michael McFaul, a Russia specialist at Stanford University, said that whoever killed Mr. Litvinenko chose the gruesome murder weapon to deter others who would openly break with the F.S.B. and the regime. “The message is: Be afraid. Be very afraid,” he said. Read more...

Russia To Blame, Says Litvinenko Widow

The widow of poisoned former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko said last night she believed the Russian authorities could be behind his death, as it emerged that two British police officers investigating the case had been contaminated with polonium 210.

Marina Litvinenko said her husband had never felt that he was a 'first target' and she did not realise how much he had ben at risk until he was close to death. She indicated that she did not blame Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, but said: 'What Putin does around him in Russia makes it possible to kill a British person on British soil. I believe that it could have been the Russian authorities.' Read more...

The Rotten Heart of Russia

Scotland Yard detectives have now had a week of official stonewalling; the British ambassador is being threatened by Right-wing thugs; and frustration and intimidation (and increasingly extortion) have become the norm for anyone doing business in Russia, writes The Sunday Telegraph.

It is very easy to criticize Russia these days; in fact, it would be much harder to say something positive. However, it seems to me that at this point there is nothing the Russian government can do to stop the continuous attacks of the Western (and particularly British) media. What seems especially unfair to me is how the investigation process into the Litvinenko poisoning has been portrayed.

"[Yuri Chaika, Russia's chief prosecutor], instructions to the team, which was led by a detective chief superintendent and was in Russia to interview potential witnesses in the investigation into the murder of the former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, were succinct and to the point. The interviews, he told them, would be carried out chiefly by his officers, with the British detectives as witnesses; no suspects would be extradited to the UK, and all Russian citizens suspected of involvement in the poisoning of Litvinenko would be tried in Russia."

Yes, Russia is a very corrupt country; yes, it is debatable if you can classify it as a democracy or a dictatorship; and yes, the recent events from the murder of Ana Politkovskaya to the harrassment of the British ambassador sheds a negative light on Russia under Putin. However, we should not forget that Russia is a sovereign (and proud) country. Russia does not have an extradition treaty with Russia and critisizing the fact that no suspects in the Litvinenko case would ever be extradited to Russia completely misses the point. Does the UK extradite Berezovsky and Zakayev? It does not. I am not arguing that it should but the principle is the same. Furthermore, the British press is very critical of the fact that the British police is dependent on collaboration with Russian authorities and, surprise-surprise, the Russians are not very willing to cooperate. I would like to see the cooperation if the sides were reversed. Can you imagine the amount of help the Russian militsia would receive in London investigating a highly controversial, politicized case? I don't think there would be very much.

I have no illusions about Russia under Vladimir Putin and the siloviki. I wish Russia was less corrupt, and more democratic and transparent. I think that the recent events have been terrible, and certainly put Russia under a scrutiny that was long overdue. However, I think that the reporting of the mainly British press borders on histeria.

Update: Peter Beaumont's thoughts in his comment in Sunday's edition of The Observer titled Just who do we think we are? observe the same treatment of the British media over how the authorities in Moscow are restricting the access British detectives are allowed to key witnesses in the Litvinenko affair.

Newsweek Interview With Yegor Gaidar

On December 7, Yegor Gaidar discussed with Newsweek his sudden, mysterious illness.