The Litvinenko File: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy

The Litvinenko File: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy

Martin Sixsmith

Language: English

Pages: 320

ISBN: 0312376685

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


On December 7 2006, in a Highgate Cemetery drenched with London rain, a Russian was buried within a stone's throw of the grave of Karl Marx. He was Alexander Litvinenko, Sasha to his friends, a boy from the deep Russian provinces who rose through the ranks of the world's most feared security service. Litvinenko was the man who denounced murder and corruption in the Russian government, fled from the wrath of the Kremlin, came to London, and allied himself with Moscow's sworn enemies.  Now he was a martyr, condemned by foes unknown to an agonizing death in a hospital bed thousands of miles from home.
Martin Sixsmith draws on his long experience as the BBC's Moscow correspondent and his contact with the key London-based Russians to dissect Alexander Litvinenko's murder. Myriad theories have been put forward since he died, but the story goes back to 2000 when hostilities were declared between the Kremlin and its political opponents. This is a war that has blown hot and cold for over six years, and that has pitted some of Russia's strongest, richest men against the most powerful Russian president since Josef Stalin.  The conflict is also beginning to revive horrors of the days of the KGB, in a conflict that looks set only to intensify as the March 2008 presidential election approaches.
The Litvinenko File is a gripping inside account of a shocking act of murder, when Russia's war with itself spilled over onto the streets of London and made the world take notice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

collaborate with the apparat. If it was the former Berezovsky could still have faith in the man he helped bring to power, but if it was the latter it would suggest Putin had no intention of being Berezovsky's man and was ungratefully striking out on his own. Berezovsky was in a dilemma. He had invested time and political capital in getting the new FSB boss installed and felt he was due his legitimate reward. On the other hand he did not want a confrontation with Putin which would risk destroying

of the day — she should occupy herself with the shops of Oxford Street and the galleries of nearby Bond Street. Kovtun, recently estranged from his German wife of eleven years, had no such problems. The two men's greeting in the hotel foyer that morning was a brief, manly hug in the Russian manner. They seemed to understand each other almost instinctively, an easy sense of partnership and common purpose built on the experience of many years working together in frequently hazardous situations.

It may even explain why Berezovsky himself 'took the decision that Sasha must leave Russia' back in the summer of 2000. But most of all it would have made Litvinenko mortal enemies among his old colleagues — among the former URPO men who had carried out crimes as part of their job description, and among the top brass of the security forces who condoned and encouraged such illegal behaviour. Shortly after his arrival in the UK a court in Moscow tried Litvinenko in absentia. He was found guilty of

gunmen had taken more than a thousand children and teachers hostage in a local school. The building had been surrounded by Russian troops who were threatening to storm it. The stand-off was eventually to end in the death of hundreds of hostages and a fierce debate about the tactics of the Russian security forces. But Politkovskaya was not there to report it. On the plane from Moscow she was served a cup of tea and shortly afterwards fell seriously ill; she lost consciousness and awoke in

we often noticed in the foyer. That occasion was the last time I saw Paul. A few weeks previously his partners had told him they wanted to buy out his share of the building. Paul refused. On the evening of 3 November 1996 a man with a Kalashnikov walked up to him as he left the building and shot him eleven times. I saw the ambulance take his body away. His mistake had been to underestimate the ruthlessness of some Russian businessmen and the nonchalance with which they use murder as a solution to

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