News in Briefs

[webofevil]

Probe into ex-KGB agent poisoning



UK police are investigating after a Russian former security agent in exile in Britain was poisoned by thallium. A clinical toxicologist said the 43-year-old had been poisoned with a potentially lethal dose of the metal.

Mr Litvinenko is in a serious but stable condition in University College Hospital, London. He is reported to be under armed guard.

The really worrying thing about these KGB poisonings (Viktor Yuschenko, Anna Politkovskaya, now Litvinenko) is that they are probably not botched assassinations; after all, if the victims survive, they do so in significantly worse shape than before, as a warning to anyone else who might ever have contemplated crossing one of the world’s most successful secret polices. [NB - written before it became clear that he had been dosed with a highly radioactive material, guaranteed to wipe him out and possibly also take out anyone in his immediate surroundings. Still, if it had just been poison, I would have stood by what I wrote.] You can tell who the leadership really wants to kill, as it just has them killed (Politkovskaya again, two years later). It’s also a clear message to everyone else, whether or not the intent was to kill, that they can carry out this kind of attack with utter impunity. [That bit's still true.]

In 1990 I found myself in the middle of a huge demonstration in Moscow against the Soviet regime, with particular reference to the KGB. “Down with the USSR! Down with the KGB!” they were yelling. (It had a snappier rhythm in Russian.) I hope those protesters still have their old banners lying forgotten in the attic. They’re going to need them again one day.

Comments

[g0ldt00th.livejournal.com]

The thing that scares me most is that he was having dinner in Itsu, sometimes I get my lunch from there. Never again, I'm not trusting their Fugu anymore!

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

Defected KGB colonel Oleg Gordievsky may well believe that “Mr Litvinenko was poisoned when he drank a cup of tea at the flat of an old Russian friend, before the lunchtime meeting at the sushi restaurant”—but readers of this journal will no doubt be harbouring their own dark suspicions (http://webofevil.livejournal.com/172037.html) as to how Litvinenko was poisoned.

[psychonomy.livejournal.com]

You can tell who the leadership really wants to kill, as it just has them killed

Not sure about this. Yes, Politovskaya was shot - but the KGB/FSB have a history of poisoning people they actually want to kill and cocking it up. Poisoning people is actually quite a delicate, subtle business. Estimating dosage is a particular sod.

Look at the - much-touted this weekend - Georgi Markov ricin assassination. Another Bulgarian defector was subject to an attempt on his life in Paris using the same technique a couple of weeks earlier, but survived because he happened to have been wearing a thick jumper on the day. On such sartorial decisions do the fates of nations lie.