Word: litvinenkoã
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...Cold War. The Financial Times’ John Thornhill nostalgically remembered Churchill calling for Europe’s union against Russia, while The Daily Telegraph opined the West was losing patience with Putin. And of course, The Sun—a scandal-mongering tabloid—titled Litvinenko??s poisoning: “From Russia, with Lunch...
When Alexander Litvinenko??s agony ended in death on Nov. 26 [see correction below], the press’s imagination immediately came to life. Perfectly time-pegged to the revival of the James Bond franchise, the renegade KGB spy was silenced forever with an obscure poison on British soil: What more could a news or opinion writer ask for? All eyes are now on the dodgy Kremlin. Beyond a doubt, there are numerous criticisms to be made of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But, considering this murder’s context, doesn’t it sound...
...year of Litvinenko??s birth, the Cold War reached its climax. JFK and Krushchev came very close to igniting a nuclear Apocalypse during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a couple of months before Alexander was born in a remote Russian village. After making a good impression with the intelligentsia at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he moved up in Soviet bureaucracy. In 1988, as dissent became pronounced all throughout Eastern Europe, Litvinenko joined the infamous KGB, the counter-intelligence agency and symbol of Soviet realpolitick in the West...
...Soviet Empire crumbled in 1991 along with the Berlin Wall, but Litvinenko??s career did not suffer. Actually, he even received a better position at the KGB’s successor, the Federal Security Service (FSB), and specialized in infiltrating organized crime syndicates, which proliferated in the post-perestroika Russia. After serving a nine-month sentence for “abuse of power” in 1999, Litvinenko pulled off a spectacular escape from Russia that took him to the United Kingdom via Turkey. His renegade life had begun...
Russia democracy is just a façade, its media is co-opted on a daily basis, and its military campaign in Chechnya is rife with human right abuses. But despite Litvinenko??s letter, which openly blamed Putin, and a Kremlin’s defensive response—“The allegations are nothing but nonsense”— this plot seems far too linear. We need to criticize Russia for the more important reasons, without going bonkers about a dead spy before we have more evidence...
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