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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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...

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...

Russian Billionaire's Bitter Feud With Putin A Plot Line in Poisoning

The Washington Post has brought a commentary in its Saturday edition revising the bitter relationship between Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian billionaire, and Vladimir Putin. Following the death of Alexander Litvinenko, Berezovsky found itself once again at the center of the international intrigue. His personal relationship with Putin makes the recent events even more bizarre.

Berezovsky was prominent among the group of Russian oligarchs who helped the then relatively Putin win the presidential election in 2000 following the abrupt abdication of Boris Yeltsin. However, Berezovsky was not able to retain his prominent position in the inner cercle of the Kremlin that he held under Yeltsin. Berezovsky's supporters claim that he was appalled by the increasing consolidation of power in the hands of Putin and his former KGB colleagus. According to Putin's followers Berezovsky unhappily discovered that the new president would not be his puppet like the ailing Yeltsin.

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Newsweek Interview With Yegor Gaidar

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

How I Was Poisoned And Why Russia's Political Enemies Were Surely Behind It

In a commentary printed in The Financial Times, Yegor Gaidar, the former Russian PM, retells the story of his poisoning and offers a theory who may have been behind it. “Most likely […] some obvious or hidden adversaries of the Russian authorities stand behind the scenes of this event, those who are interested in further radical deterioration of relations between Russia and the west. Within several hours, comparing the dates of events that took place during the past six weeks, I formulated a rather logical and consistent hypothesis on the reasons behind this. The world view regains its intrinsic logic and ceases resembling a Kafkaesque nightmare. Still, it does not look any more enjoyable. Well, as they say in Russia, as long as we are alive, we might even be happy some day, but that is a different story.”