The Litvinenko File: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy
Martin Sixsmith
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0312376685
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
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