Word: kgb
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...that his sole motivation for grabbing the limelight? Later, two of the officers in the episode claimed the stunt was bought and paid for by Berezovsky, which probably only heightened the rage of the man who had become the FSB's chief--Vladimir Putin. To Putin, a former KGB officer, what Litvinenko had done "was a major act of treason," says former KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin, now an exile in the U.S. after having written about Russia's tilt toward authoritarianism. In his book The Lubyanka Gang, Litvinenko, for his part, said he had gone to Putin before...
Putin, says Alexei Kondaurov, a former KGB general who is now a maverick Duma deputy, is known for keeping score and for a long memory. So the idea that he would want an infuriating gadfly like Litvinenko to disappear is not beyond reason. But the President's defenders scoff at the idea that he might have been involved in Litvinenko's death. Putin, they say, had no need to get rid of Litvinenko; the exile was an irrelevant crank. Milton Bearden, a former CIA spy in Moscow, as well as other experienced intelligence hands, agrees it would be nuts...
Murder is a firmly established tradition in Russian battles over money and power. So, the suspicion in Moscow is that the recent murders of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko - as well as the alleged attempt on former prime minister and economic-reform mastermind Yegor Gaidar - result from domestic clan warfare. Russians are quite accustomed to seeing assassination used as an instrument to silence an opponent or redistribute assets, and over a dozen major energy-corporation and banking executives have been killed in the past couple of months alone. What is different about the Litvinenko and Gaidar...
Alexander Litvinenko killed in a spectacularly unusual way, poisoned with a tiny dose of the radioactive element polonium-210. But the routine of the former KGB agent on the day he ingested the stuff--a shuttle among elegant hotels, a sushi bar and exclusive offices in the heart of London--would be familiar to any number of affluent Russians who make the city their home. London is 31% foreign born, profiting from successive waves of the ultrarich--American bankers, Arab sheiks, Hong Kong Chinese. Now the Litvinenko case is making some Brits wonder whether the city has turned into Moscow...
...Whatever the agenda of those behind the killings, the effect may be more devastating than they intend. Says former KGB General and now a dissenting Duma member Alexei Kondaurov: "The Litvinenko murder landmarks the precedent of nuclear terrorism. Unless it is resolved, terrorists of any mettle will know they can get away with it." Putin's failure to help resolve that crime will also further institutionalize violence as a tool of political struggle, he believes. "Then, both the state, factions within the state, and opposition forces will habitually resort to murder as a political expediency. This will smash the country...