From Russia with lies

Beneath a deepening web of conspiracy theories rests the enigma of poisoned ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko and some dark truths about Putin's regime.

By Michael Mainville

Read more: Russia, Politics, News

Dec. 14, 2006 | MOSCOW -- Alexander Litvinenko loved conspiracy theories. In exile in London, where he fled from Russia in 2000, Litvinenko would tell whoever would listen that his former employers at the KGB were involved in all kinds of cloak-and-dagger horrors.

The bombing of four Russian apartment buildings in 1999 that left hundreds dead; the Moscow theater siege that killed 129 people; the 2004 explosion on the Moscow metro that killed dozens of commuters -- all the work of one of the KGB's post-Soviet successors, the Federal Security Service (FSB), according to Litvinenko. He once contended that Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was trained by the FSB in 1998 before mysteriously being released to organize attacks against the United States. Even last year's controversy over the publication in a Danish newspaper of editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed, he claimed, was orchestrated by the FSB to punish Denmark for its refusal to extradite Chechen separatists.

None of it could ever be proved, of course, but Litvinenko knew that the secret to good conspiracy theories is that they feed on the absence of proof. And the more outlandish the claim, the harder it may be to disprove.

So it is with the circumstances of Litvinenko's own death on Nov. 23 from radiation poisoning. From London to Moscow to Hamburg, Litvinenko's killing has unleashed a storm of speculation that has grabbed the world's attention for weeks and prompted talk of a new Cold War between Russia and the West. Political analysts here say that President Vladimir Putin's increasingly authoritarian rule has undermined his credibility in denying any Kremlin involvement. Human rights activists, meanwhile, are charging that the flurry of Western media coverage has gotten Litvinenko's profile largely wrong.

Nearly every day brings a new twist in the saga and another strand for the tangled web of conspiracy theories. A key witness in the case, Moscow businessman and former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, claimed Wednesday that Litvinenko was poisoned more than two weeks earlier than is widely believed. Lugovoi told the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets that he and Litvinenko were contaminated on Oct. 16 during a visit to a London-based security firm, where traces of radiation were later found by British police. The two did not visit the firm again on Nov. 1, the date that Litvinenko is known to have fallen ill, so they could not have been exposed to the radiation on that day, said Lugovoi, who is undergoing radiation tests himself in a Moscow clinic.

Another of Litvinenko's associates, Dmitry Kovtun, also claimed Wednesday that he was contaminated with radiation during meetings with Litvinenko and Lugovoi in London back in mid-October. German police say they found traces of radiation in various locations visited by Kovtun before he traveled to London on Nov. 1. Both men have been interviewed by British detectives in Moscow and have denied any involvement in Litvinenko's poisoning.

Litvinenko conveyed that he had no doubt who was behind his poisoning. In a deathbed statement, he claimed his killing had been ordered by Putin, himself a former head of the FSB. "You may succeed in silencing one man, but the howl of protest from around the world, Mr. Putin, will reverberate in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done," the statement read.

Russian officials have scornfully denied any involvement, pointing out that there is not a shred of evidence connecting Litvinenko's death to the Kremlin. Still, the accusation alone was enough to prompt widespread condemnation of Putin in the West. "The fatal poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London, along with all the other suspicious murders and attempted murders of Kremlin critics in recent months, poses fundamental questions about Russia, and how the West should treat it," began a New York Times editorial on Dec. 4.

"In the past couple of years there's been a growing sense in the West that Russian democracy is in decline," said Masha Lipman, a political analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Center. "Russia's image, which wasn't great even prior to this, is getting worse."

Why would Putin want Litvinenko dead? His supporters say Litvinenko was a thorn in the Kremlin's side -- a dissident whistleblower and determined human-rights campaigner.

But in Moscow, human-rights campaigners have been dismayed in recent weeks to see how Litvinenko has been portrayed in many Western media reports. While he was no doubt a critic of Putin, he was a marginal one whose motives and methods were never entirely clear.

"Of course it's a pity that he has died, but the idea that Litvinenko was a dissident and a human-rights campaigner is ludicrous," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the doyen of human-rights activists in Russia and head of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

Litvinenko's supporters have also attempted to link his death with the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, a crusading Russian journalist and prominent Putin critic. Politkovskaya was gunned down outside her Moscow apartment in October as she was preparing to publish another in a long series of articles outlining human-rights abuses by pro-Kremlin forces in Chechnya. After his poisoning, Litvinenko claimed he had been investigating her murder and had evidence linking her death to Putin.

But Politkovskaya's colleagues at the newspaper Novaya Gazeta laughed off those claims as ridiculous. "It's nonsense that Litvinenko was investigating Anna Politkovskaya's death before he was poisoned. How could he be doing it in London?" said Roman Shleinov, Novaya Gazeta's chief investigative reporter. "Litvinenko had nothing to do with Politkovskaya. She herself was very skeptical about his activities."

Many long-standing critics of Putin doubt he would have personally ordered Litvinenko's killing. "It just doesn't make sense. There was no reason to kill him," said Boris Kagarlitsky, a Soviet-era dissident who is now a political analyst in Moscow. As subsequent events have shown, Litvinenko has been able to inflict far more damage to the Kremlin's standing in death than he ever did in life.

Still, Kagarlitsky conceded it is possible that rogue elements in Russia's security services, which have grown increasingly influential under Putin, were behind the poisoning. "Litvinenko was seen as the worst kind of traitor in those circles," he said. As Putin's final term approaches its end in 2008, his control over various factions in the Kremlin is wavering, Kagarlitsky said. Under less constraint, forces from the security services -- known as the Siloviki, from the Russian word for strength -- may be feeling freer to flex their muscle and settle old scores. Or, following the spiral of conspiracy theory even further, perhaps a different faction could have ordered Litvinenko's killing in order to discredit and weaken the Siloviki.

Next page: Talk of a plot against Putin, plans for a "dirty bomb" and Litvinenko's alleged conversion to Islam just before his death