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Or obscuring the source. If I wanted to cause a Chinese-North Korea conflict, I'd do it in a way that gives me enough time to tie up loose ends and points in a

by winfred 10y ago

Or obscuring the source. If I wanted to cause a Chinese-North Korea conflict, I'd do it in a way that gives me enough time to tie up loose ends and points in a certain direction. Same with Litvinenko. We will never find out the true story. Was it a message? Probably. But from who to who? Might have been FSB, but there were plenty of other parties that really didn't like Litvinenko and could have used Russian Polonium either to blame the FSB or to tell the FSB not to fuck with them, because they had the means to blame them for random hits (or a million other possible reasons).

varjag 10y ago
Lugovoy, the murderer of Litvinenko is now a member or parliament in Russia with extradition requests of the UK being denied. It's pretty clear the assassination had the highest possible approval. Sometimes, things are exactly what they look like.
- feintruled 10y ago
  In fairness, Russia flat out deny ALL extradition requests for their own citizens. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/22/russia.lukeharding https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/22/russia.lukehar... A commendable stance, IMHO. (From a most uncommendable unregime). They also have no extradition treaty at all with the US. Hence why Snowden is there, I guess.
  - varjag 10y ago
    It's certainly not legal loopholes that keep Snowden away from being handed over but a decision of one man. Russian constitution also has a lot of great things in it, like freedom of speech, freedom of association, two terms limit on presidency, immutability of borders and priority of international treaties - all of which were stomped when it became politically expedient.
mchan 10y ago
> Might have been FSB, but there were plenty of other parties that really didn't like Litvinenko and could have used Russian Polonium either to blame the FSB or to tell the FSB not to fuck with them, because they had the means to blame them for random hits (or a million other possible reasons) According to the book 'A Very Expensive Poison' by Luke Harding, the Polonium used in the Litvinenko assassination is only produced in one reactor in the world, located in Ukraine. It would have been almost impossible to obtain without FSB knowledge or collusion, leading investigators to believe that Putin had direct knowledge and/or approval.

by winfred 10y ago

varjag 10y ago

Lugovoy, the murderer of Litvinenko is now a member or parliament in Russia with extradition requests of the UK being denied. It's pretty clear the assassination had the highest possible approval. Sometimes, things are exactly what they look like.

feintruled 10y ago
In fairness, Russia flat out deny ALL extradition requests for their own citizens. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/22/russia.lukeharding https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/22/russia.lukehar... A commendable stance, IMHO. (From a most uncommendable unregime). They also have no extradition treaty at all with the US. Hence why Snowden is there, I guess.
- varjag 10y ago
  It's certainly not legal loopholes that keep Snowden away from being handed over but a decision of one man. Russian constitution also has a lot of great things in it, like freedom of speech, freedom of association, two terms limit on presidency, immutability of borders and priority of international treaties - all of which were stomped when it became politically expedient.

mchan 10y ago

> Might have been FSB, but there were plenty of other parties that really didn't like Litvinenko and could have used Russian Polonium either to blame the FSB or to tell the FSB not to fuck with them, because they had the means to blame them for random hits (or a million other possible reasons) According to the book 'A Very Expensive Poison' by Luke Harding, the Polonium used in the Litvinenko assassination is only produced in one reactor in the world, located in Ukraine. It would have been almost impossible to obtain without FSB knowledge or collusion, leading investigators to believe that Putin had direct knowledge and/or approval.