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Litvinenko Inquiry Publishes Report
- ck2 11y agoImagine how dangerous Putin is going to become when his income from oil drys up this year. In fact the whole world is going to become way more dangerous with the wealthy losing their oil income. Somehow I think the Saudis want it that way, distracts the world from their crimes.
- dovdov 11y agoYep, let's burn up the whole place, no evidence. /s :)
- digi_owl 11y agoI don't think he will be. He does not seem like the impulsive type that will start something just because. Frankly over the last few years he has made both Europe and America look like fools.
- Angostura 11y agoTell that to Crimea and Ukraine.
- digi_owl 11y agoRussia had military bases there, did you expect him to just roll over and play nice when a regime hostile to Russia came to power (under questionable circumstances no less)? The rest of it is a shit storm indeed, but i don't know how much control Putin has over that situation.
- temp 11y agoRussia had legal right to a certain number of troops in a specific part of Crimea (Sevastopol). Everything that happened surrounding the referundum and the mass deployment of Russian troops from there on was a total farce.
- kislotnik 11y agoI wouldn't say current Ukrainian government started as a "regime hostile to Russia". Annexiation of Crimea made it hostile to Russia
- PerfectDlite 11y agoSo you will definitely justify an US invasion to Russia in 1991 or 1993 since 'regime hostile to US came to power'?
- crdoconnor 11y agoPutin was reacting to the Maidan. The takeover of Crimea was no Iraq.
- ck2 11y agoAre we forgetting Crimea and Ukraine already?
- temp 11y ago>Frankly over the last few years he has made both Europe and America look like fools. With what is happening to the Russian economy, it would seem he has also made himself and his citizens fools as well.
- drdaeman 11y ago> himself and his citizens Nah, not himself. The Inner Party is still good, just having some inconveniences. It's mostly the Proles who're getting fucked over.
- girvo 11y agoIn what way?
- ordbajsare 11y agoYea! He may start droneing people in Pakistan..... that be horrible.. aa wait .. the US is already doing that.
- mschuster91 11y agoI believe GP meant: what will Putin do to his own population when the oil income dries up and Russia can't pay for pensions, police, firefighters, military etc. and people protest in result. And it's not just Putin who has this problem: pretty much every country that is not Saudi Arabia and depends on oil prices > 40$ a barrel (Russia e.g. needs 100$ a barrel to maintain financial stability!) will have or already has problems. The only upside of this situation is that the low oil prices are actively fucking up ISIS. No pay, no fighters.
- ck2 11y agoActually it makes Daesh more dangerous, to replace oil income they are turning to slavery in greater numbers. Replacing paid fighters with children forced to march into battle. But they also tax their populace, so if they increase taxes unreasonably, perhaps people will revolt against them. The consequences for the innocent are horrible though.
- forgetsusername 11y agoOn the one hand, crazy story. On the other, what do people think the implications and dangers are when you're involved in the spy game at the highest levels?
- tikumo 11y agoExactly, and we like the idea that some James Bond guy is working for "our" causes and killing spies, but when it happens in real life in a nice controlled manner.. we act all surprised.
- geff82 11y agoWhile being pro-western most of the time, I do not buy into stories like this one in the current political situation. Might be the truth or might not. It won't matter that much after all (except for the authors of headlines). Do I sound pessimistic?
- dovdov 11y agoWe all know these agencies play clean. /s
- fidget 11y agoThe Litvinenko death occurred prior to the Russian Georgian war, prior to Obama's grand reset, prior to the failure of that reset, prior to the Crimean crisis, in essence, prior to the current political situation. And there has never been any real doubt that it was orchestrated by the KGB, with (at the very least) the knowledge of Putin.
- crdoconnor 11y ago>And there has never been any real doubt There's never been much doubt in the western media, but then again the western media maintains the pretence that Russia isn't factionalized and Putin has absolute power over all ex-FSB/KGB members (Putin isn't unhappy with this characterization; he'd rather be seen as a monster than powerless). The western media isn't coy about bringing up that Lugovoy is a member of the Duma but they usually leave out the fact that he belongs to the far right Liberal Democratic Party and is not a member of Putin's United Russia. If the situations were reversed - let's say an ex-CIA agent killed Edward Snowden (noted critic of Obama) and was subsequently elected as Republican senator would you automatically assume that Obama ordered the attack?
- drdaeman 11y ago> leave out the fact that he belongs to the far right Liberal Democratic Party and is not a member of Putin's United Russia With all seriousness, there is no real difference between those. The parties are not opposing each other (except for minor agendas) and differences are primarily cosmetic. Opposing parties (if they manage to get built - opposition is full of issues, too) are practically barred from registering and entering the elections. Not to say LDPR isn't holding any liberal or democratic values (but that's irrelevant). > [...] would you automatically assume that Obama ordered the attack Given that Snowden isn't some small fry, it's reasonable to assume that such things would be at least acknowledged by the higher-ups the chain of command. So, it would be reasonable to assume that there is a good chance of this. Not ordering - the initiative could be someone else's, but acknowledging.
- joosters 11y agoT-shirt sent to Boris Berezovsky (another Putin critic who died) by Lugovoy in 2010: front: https://twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/690131788946096128/photo/1 https://twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/690131788946096128/p... back: https://twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/690132000980729857/photo/1 https://twitter.com/gordonrayner/status/690132000980729857/p...
- rdancer 11y agoWhy does the FSB threaten a Russian in (bad) English, is this a James Bond movie?
- tikumo 11y agoWhy is this weird? It's logical the highest person has to be responsible? The CIA or MI6 would probably do the same for their spies. I think it's better than the alternative of an unknown high person within the ranks to make this call..
- mavdi 11y agoExactly, Russian secret service were either dumb to do it in such obvious way or just wanted to send a message to other spies. There are plenty of unexplained British and US spy deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)
- tlrobinson 11y ago'His decomposing naked remains were found in a red The North Face bag, padlocked from the outside, in the bath of the main bedroom's en-suite bathroom.' ... 'A subsequent Metropolitan Police re-investigation concluded that Williams's death was "probably an accident."' ... what?
- elthran 11y agoYeah - completely farcical ruling. However, surely if he was killed to order, the people responsible would make it far less obvious, and if it was attempted to be covered up - surely it wouldn't be as poorly done as this?
- tempodox 11y agoPutin is implicated in several murders. If he should be murdered himself, he will have died a natural death.
- Demiurge 11y agoA former spy switched sides and worked for the other side exposing agents and whatever else MI6 deemed worth paying for. What would be your (or anyones) decision as head of state? Of course if a country being attacked, a leader is disliked by a geopolitical foe, those are natural things.
- mvanvoorden 11y agoI don't really see why this would have implications for the relationship between UK and Russia. Isn't this part of the spy game? When one defects, one can expect to be killed. I don't believe the UK wouldn't do the same the other way around. Spying gets you killed, eventually, no matter who you work for.
- kislotnik 11y agoBecause if he was poisoned with radioactive stuff, there is a possibility that some of the stuff got into sewage
- TeMPOraL 11y agoWikipedia suggests he ingested ~10 micrograms of polonium. If somehow even most of it reached the sewage, we'll be talking homeopatic quantities at this point. It's very unlikely it would go through water treatment and end up in someone's food in enough quantity to cause harm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko#Po-210_concentration_in_the_body_of_Litvinenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...
- kislotnik 11y agoI agree with you, we can estimate the amount of polonium he ingested, but we surely cannot estimate the amount of polonium involved in that operation.
- warkid 11y agoExactly! Next time please use 'organic' toxins!
- pjc50 11y agoWe thought the Cold War was supposed to be over.
- sklivvz1971 11y ago"Putin had a personal motive for wanting Litvinenko dead, and that the president would likely have had to approve a high-stakes operation to assassinate the former KGB operative on British soil." In other words, there is no evidence, just "cui prodest".
- tomp 11y agoAmongst others who had personal motives for wanting Litvinenko dead are the US president and UK prime minister, so that they could smear the incident all over Putin. Recently, I found myself not believing anything coming out of the media (Western and rest of the world alike) if it at all supports the prior interests of the owners/regulators. For example, did North Korea really hack Sony, or were they just the most convenient actor to blame?
- pjc50 11y agoOther way round: Litvinenko was killed years ago, and speculation that it was done by Russian intelligence broke out immediately. The formal investigation was held back until now. It's quite likely that it's only being investigated and publicly blamed on Russia because relations have already gone bad.
- dmichulke 11y agoOn a related note: https://www.academia.edu/8776021/The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the_Maidan_in_Ukraine https://www.academia.edu/8776021/The_Snipers_Massacre_on_the... EDIT: There are other stories where Putin / evil Russia / the former Ukrainian government were accused of something horrible that now turn out to be quite different, such as this one. Strangely, I never find these in the big newspapers.
- kbart 11y agoMaybe because such stories are usually nothing more than Russian state sponsored propaganda and gets debunked nearly instantly(0)? Your linked "paper" doesn't look academic at all, I didn't see any actual evidence there, just an opinionated "analysis" on some blurry footage. EDIT. here some more on this "paper": http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/10/23/the-snipers-massacre-in-kyiv-katchanovski-marples/ http://euromaidanpress.com/2014/10/23/the-snipers-massacre-i... 0. http://www.stopfake.org/en/tag/russian-propaganda/ http://www.stopfake.org/en/tag/russian-propaganda/, http://www.russialies.com/ http://www.russialies.com/ just to name few.
- dmichulke 11y agoYour first link indeed seems valuable and I kind of struggle to find good material both for and against the official version. So thanks for that. The other links look much more like propaganda themselves. How do you arrive at the claim that my link is state-sponsored propaganda and yours are not?
- kbart 11y ago"How do you arrive at the claim that my link is state-sponsored propaganda and yours are not?" Sure, there's no such things as objective mass media, all of them shine a light from slightly different angles to support their agenda and please investors, but I'm not aware of such straightforward, blatant lies that Russian TV (e.g. RT) shows daily on western counterparts. Publicly crucified boy, pictures from Syria, beyond funny photoshop of Ukrainian fighter jet downing MH17 etc. All these" stories" were really shown on official Russian TV. Now please provide such obvious propaganda statements from reputable western sources. "We lie, because they lie" is the exact statement Russia propaganda wants you to believe.
- enlightenedfool 11y agoInsignificant compared to openly murdering heads of states of Iraq, Libya and causing deaths of hundreds and thousands of people across middle east.
- jpkeisala 11y agoSo we should not discuss about this murder since there are other more significant murders?
- Grue3 11y agoThe amount of whataboutism [1] in this whole thread is embarassing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- htns 11y agoThis murder has been discussed to death. It was plain enough from the beginning that Litvinenko was killed for defecting. I don't know why the story keeps resurfacing.
- DyslexicAtheist 11y agothe murders were not carried out against civilians. an individual playing playing tinker, tailor, soldier can no longer be considered a "civilian" IMHO. Death however tragic is a soldiers death. So yes those innocent kids in Irak, Lybia, Syria, Afghanistan, (you know the ones often referred to as "fun sized terrorists" by cowardly US drone operators) do have a higher value than some soldier who knows what they got themselves into.
- enlightenedfool 11y agoThe inquiry says - 'Putin probably approved...' 'Probably'? Come back with facts and proofs.
- ajuc 11y agoAfter 2002 Moscow theather terror attack some people (including Litvinienko) suggested FSB was behind the attack to justify harsher policy on Chechenia, and to increase popular support for Putin. > An independent investigation of the event was undertaken by Russian politicians Sergei Yushenkov, Sergei Kovalev, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Hoover Institute scholar John B. Dunlop, and former FSB officers Aleksander Litvinenko and Mikhail Trepashkin. According to their version, FSB knew about the terrorist group's arrival in Moscow and directed them to the theater through their agent provocateur Khanpasha Terkibayev ("Abu Bakar"), whose name was in the list of hostage takers and who left the theater alive.[58][88][89][90] In April 2003 Litvinenko gave information about Terkibayev ("the Terkibayev file") to Sergei Yushenkov when he visited London. Yushenkov passed this file to Politkovskaya and she was able to interview Terkibayev in person.[91] A few days later, Yushenkov was assassinated by gunfire in Moscow. Terkibayev was later killed in an apparent car crash in Chechnya. > In June 2003, Litvinenko stated in an interview with the Australian television programme Dateline, that two of the Chechen militants involved in the siege—whom he named "Abdul the Bloody" and "Abu Bakar"—were working for the FSB, and that the agency manipulated the terrorists into staging the attack.[92] Litvinenko said: "[w]hen they tried to find [Abdul the Bloody and Abu Bakar] among the rotting corpses of dead terrorists, they weren't there. The FSB got its agents out. So the FSB agents among Chechens organized the whole thing on FSB orders, and those agents were released" Litvinienko was killed in London, obviously. Politkovskaya was murdered in her home in Moscow in 7th October 2006. Ironicaly - 7th October is Putin's birthday. If Litvinienko and Politkovskaya were right not only Putin has ordered assasinations of several former spies and journalists criticizing him, but he's also responsible for hundreds of victims of terrorism in Russia, mostly regular civilian Russians. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis#Claims_of_FSB_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis#...
- PerfectDlite 11y agoStrange that you were downvoted.
- dfkf 11y ago"Fourth, the causes espoused by Mr Litvinenko – such as the FSB’s alleged responsibility for the apartment bombings, the war in Chechnya, and alleged collusion between President Putin and other members of his administration and organised crime – were areas of particular sensitivity to the Putin administration. " "Finally, there was undoubtedly a personal dimension to the antagonism between Mr Litvinenko on the one hand and President Putin on the other. The history between the two men dated back to their (only) meeting in 1998, at a time when Mr Putin was the newly appointed head of the FSB and Mr Berezovsky and Mr Litvinenko still hoped that he might implement a programme of reform. In the years that followed,Mr Litvinenko made repeated highly personal attacks on President Putin, culminating in the allegation of paedophilia in July 2006" That is from the report. Call me a Putin-apologist, an agent from Olgino, but these motives look like garbage. There is an entire industry of "making highly personal attacks" on Putin and blaming all kinds of things on him. The name of these "Putin's critics" is legion, they have been doing it for more than a decade, and they've had zero success... that is, of course, if by "success" you mean making Russians believe what they say, and not just selling shocking stories about the darkest secrets of the KayGeeBee to British tabloids...
- ajuc 11y agoPeople criticize Putin - they die. Who is killing them?
- Ntrails 11y agoLet's be real here, a minuscule proportion of critics die. The vast majority are ignored and a few get sent to prison for some crime they may or may not have had any hand in. The motivations described are certainly insufficient to withstand scrutiny.
- bartread 11y agoPossibly there's more detail in the report itself (I haven't read it) but, if not, I tend to agree.
- dfkf 11y ago
- rdancer 11y agoMisleading title.
- dang 11y agoWhat's a better title? An article on so hopelessly politicized a topic can't be good for HN, and was deservedly flagged, but if the title is inaccurate we can still change it.
- rdancer 11y agoI suggest: "The Litvinenko Inquiry publishes Report into the death of Alexander Litvinenko († 2006)" "Implicated" is misleading; the article said that he "likely approved" the assassination, which without spin translates to the very mundane fact that he was the Russia's president and Supreme Commander-in-Chief at that time.
- dang 11y agoOk, changed.
- Gatsky 11y agoI think it's more likely that this was done to gain favour with Putin, rather than directly ordered by him. This possibilty is more dreadful in a way, countless FSB members dreaming up elaborate murders for Putin's detractors without him having to say anything.
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoHistorically, a very interesting use of poison. It seems obvious that the Russians didn't want this to be a huge mystery -- and probably wanted him to have a painful death (which he did). If I remember correctly, there was a chair in the embassy that had this stuff on it. Nobody could sit on the chair for fear of death. I might be mistaken, though. Also historically, I am reminded of Putin meeting one of the superbowl champs. During the meeting, he takes the guy's superbowl ring! "I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, 'I can kill someone with this ring,'" Kraft said, the New York Post reported last week. "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out." The point is this: the new Russia lacks a lot of the subtlety of the old one. Aside from anything else, I think that might be a good thing, but I'm not sure. They're definitely more interesting.
- kbart 11y agoI rarely say that, but this article really does not belong here, on HN. The title is a clickbait (there's no evidence that Putin ordered or even knew about the murder neither in the linked article, nor anywhere else so far) and it only starts political flame wars not a constructive, intellectual discussion.
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