Reality is darker than James Bond

Its too early to speculate about Gaidar but Alexander Litvinenko appears to have been killed by Russians because he was considered a traitor and may have been about to release secrets especially damaging to Putin and the FSB.

Russian intelligence may have wanted to make an example of Litvinenko, punishing him as a traitor in the pay of the oligarchs, in the most excruciating and public way possible.

In the 1990s Russian businessmen acquiring state assets, particularly oil, were popularly branded as “oligarchs” but with particular venom by a group known as the “siloviki”. The siloviki are a brotherhood of former and present members of Russian intelligence (most commonly from the KGB and the FSB) and military services.

An indication of its probable power is that a former member of the KGB and one-time Director of the FSB is Putin himself. Another powerful siloviki is Nikolai Patrushev, Director of the FSB, who also served in the KGB with Putin. The siloviki support significant state intervention in economic, social and personal matters. They are often seen as the force behind recent controls on democracy occurring under Putin, including some curtailing of freedom of the press.

Litvinenko's close business and political ties with Boris Berezovsky a leading oligarch, who fled to London, would have further angered the siloviki.

Litvinenko has variously been suspected of holding powerful dossier on:

• the FSB’s failure to protect (or even kill) recently murdered human rights campaigner and journalist Anna Politkovskaya;
• further information on FSB crimes generally; and,
• the Kremlin’s demolition of the Yukos oil company.

In response to this avalanche of bad press Russian sources appear to be doing their utmost to obfuscate the issue and discredit Litvinenko’s memory. One Russian report implied Berezovsky himself wanted to kill to Litvinenko.

More convincing information, with a nasty photo, is based on Moscow sourced information and statements from a Russian student currently in London. It originally appeared in the UK’s Observer of December 3, 2006 and makes the assessment “Litvinenko's access to such documents could have made him an enemy of both big business interests and the Kremlin. However, his claims are almost impossible to verify and some political analysts have gone as far as to dismiss him as a fantasist.”

The investigation of Litvinenko death is being pushed energetically by the British Government.

As of December 4, 2006 officers from Scotland Yard (and probably from British intelligence) have flown to Moscow to interview the three identified Russians (Andrei Lugovoi (former KGB), Dmitri Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko) who met Litvinenko in London on November 1, 2006 as well as two other Russians, not yet identified. It is unlikely, however, that British investigators will make much headway in Putin’s Russia. More explicit information may come from other Russian defectors, but, as such information is unofficial it carries less weight.

A report that the British Home Secretary will refer the matter to the European Commission sadly sounds like investigations may be converted into committee work to avoid maintaining pressure on Russian suspects.

Litvinenko died bravely after fighting a dangerous game against a Russia still dominated by genuinely dark institutions. He had no institution of his own to protect him. The press may turn to information packaged by the Russians concerning his foibles and occasional miscalculations, but his criticisms of Putin and overly powerful Russian intelligence services should not be drowned out.