Orders to Kill

by Amy Knight

  It is important to note that both Lugovoy and Kovtun also endangered their family members, along with a host of others who were at the homes, offices, hotels, and restaurants they visited in London. As Marina Litvinenko’s attorney expressed it: “It was an act of nuclear terrorism on the streets of a major city which put the lives of numerous other members of the public at risk.”32 German authorities found significant polonium contamination at Marina Wall’s residence, as well as that of her mother Elenora, in Hamburg. At the Millennium Hotel, where the whole Russian group had stayed, several rooms had high levels of radioactive contamination. Even on the plane returning to Moscow on November 3, several of the seats Lugovoy’s family had sat in registered high polonium counts. Lugovoy later acknowledged publicly that his family had been tested for polonium and “the results were distressing.”33

  As the names of Lugovoy and Kovtun emerged in connection with Litvinenko’s poisoning, both men tried doing damage control. They went to the British Embassy in Moscow to proclaim their innocence in the affair and gave a press conference in Moscow on November 24, denying their culpability. Kovtun called his ex-wife Marina in Hamburg late in November to ask her if she had heard about the murder and his possible involvement. She recounted the conversation: “I answered no and I said I didn’t know what he meant. He said the newspapers were full of it. I asked what it was about and he said it involved the poisoning of Litvinenko. I said I had no idea who that was and what it was about. He said I would perhaps hear something which concerned him but this was not true.”34

  The day after Litvinenko died, Lugovoy called Marina Litvinenko, twice, to express his condolences. She did not pick up, so he left voicemail messages.35 He began calling Badri Patarkatsishvili soon after he returned to Moscow. According to Patarkatsishvili, “I had a number of phone calls from Lugovoy. In a short period he called many times. On the first occasion, he said ‘look, Badri, I inform you that I did not kill Litvinenko.’ I think he understood that someone was listening to his calls and his comments were for his benefit.”36

  Lugovoy also called his contact at Erinys, Tim Reilly, shortly after Litvinenko’s death. Reilly (who incidentally fell quite ill on the evening of October 26, after he, Litvinenko, and Lugovoy met in his offices) recalled: “He called me up and it was as if he was anticipating the sort of international storm; so in other words he was saying: ‘I was not involved in this, Tim, as you know, and I don’t know why I’m being involved in it, but I like Sasha am as shocked as you are.’”37

  On February 7, 2007, Lugovoy telephoned Berezovsky from Moscow and asked him if he believed the story that he, Lugovoy, was involved in Litvinenko’s death. Berezovsky replied that he could not say for sure, but that Lugovoy should come to London and give evidence if he was innocent. Berezovsky even offered to pay for his lawyer.38 But by this time, Berezovsky must have begun to grasp that the man in whom he had put so much trust was likely a murderer. And what’s more, he was doubtless aware that at some point, he too could become another Putin victim.

  Reaction in Russia

  In the meantime, President Putin did his own version of damage control during his annual press conference on February 1, 2007. Asked about the Litvinenko murder, he observed: “Alexander Litvinenko was dismissed from the security services. Before that he served in the convoy troops. There he did not deal with any secrets.… There was no need to run anywhere, he did not have any secrets. Everything negative he could say with respect to his service and his previous employment, he already said a long time ago, so there could be nothing new in what he did later.”39 These words, of course, were meant to convey the message that Litvinenko was not significant enough to matter to the Kremlin and that the Kremlin would supposedly have had no motive to kill him. But those who understood the Putin regime knew that Litvinenko was considered a traitor who deserved the highest punishment.

  In May 2007 the British Crown Prosecution Service formally charged Lugovoy with Litvinenko’s murder and issued a warrant for his arrest. Kovtun was not charged until November 2011. (Both are on international wanted lists but they have been protected by the Kremlin from extradition to Britain.) On May 31, 2007, Lugovoy and Kovtun gave another press conference in Moscow, adding more to their story, which was crumbling in terms of credibility.40 Lugovoy did most of the talking: “The English offered me to gather incriminating information about the Russian president, V. Putin and members of his family.… I do not count myself an ardent admirer of President Putin, and I have my own reasons for that, which many can probably guess. But I was taught to defend my motherland and not to betray it.” Lugovoy went on to describe an elaborate effort to get him to work for MI6, and claimed that Berezovsky had been a British agent since the time he had been in the Russian Security Council in the late 1990s.

  In Lugovoy’s somewhat confusing rendition of the Litvinenko affair, Berezovsky, in collusion with MI6, had poisoned Litvinenko because the latter was blackmailing Berezovsky. Lugovoy and Kovtun were framed by being deliberately contaminated with polonium. In Lugovoy’s words: “we were marked with polonium on purpose, for subsequent use in the political scandal.” Both Lugovoy and Kovtun had bitter complaints about how they had suffered because of the murder case. Lugovoy claimed that in one business deal alone “with a famous world company,” he had lost $25 million. Kovtun lamented that he could never go back to Germany because he would be arrested.41

  Interestingly, Lugovoy said in a December 2008 interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais that, when he had studied at an elite military academy [in Moscow], he made friends with people who later became high-ranking officials in the FSB: “one of the people closest to me is the deputy director of the FSB, a general with huge potential and resources.” Lugovoy added that “when the British agents started to approach me, one of the first things I did was to inform the FSB so that they wouldn’t accuse me of being a traitor or a spy.”42 Thus Lugovoy confirmed that the FSB officials knew well about his travels to London and his dealings with Litvinenko and Berezovsky. It is hard to imagine that they would not have pressured Lugovoy to collaborate with them in furthering their objectives vis-a-vis these two putative Russian traitors, Litvinenko and Berezovsky.

  Final Judgements

  Far from being viewed as a criminal, Lugovoy was treated like a celebrity in Russia. In September 2007, LDRP leader Zhirinovsky announced at a press conference with much fanfare that Lugovoy would occupy the second position on his party’s ticket. Zhirinovsky may have been hoping that with Lugovoy on the ticket, the LDRP would gain some steam in its political campaign for the 2007 Duma elections. Interestingly, a U.S. embassy cable observed: “Throughout the press conference Lugovoy appeared uncomfortable in his new role as straight man for Zhirinovsky. It also appeared that he had been reprimanded by his new boss about the rank order in the party. Lugovoy pointedly retracted a statement of a day earlier that he had ambitions to run for president, coyly saying that every Russian would want to be the leader of such a great country, before gamely insisting that Zhirinovsky had the mettle to replace Putin.”43

  Lugovoy has become a highly visible and wealthy member of the Duma, as well as a TV personality. (Kovtun has fared less well, and he and Lugovoy severed their relationship in 2009.) Lugovoy’s wife divorced him shortly after the episode with Litvinenko, not surprisingly, given that polonium had tainted their entire family because of his venture. He remarried a go-go dancer in 2013, with a lavish wedding on the Black Sea.44 According to Russian media reports, his new, very young and beautiful bride had no idea that her new husband was a suspect in the murder of Litvinenko when she married him.45

  With financial help from Berezovsky, Litvinenko’s father, Valter, moved to Italy with his second wife to join his son Maxim (Litvinenko’s half-brother), who owned a restaurant on the Adriatic coast. Initially, Valter was convinced that Putin was behind the murder and said so publicly. But he gradually changed his mind and in early 2012 gave an interview to a Russian television station, sobbing, in which he a
pologized for blaming his son’s death on Russian authorities.46 Subsequently, he gave a deposition from Italy for Russian prosecutors in which he voiced the conviction that Boris Berezovsky (along with Alex Goldfarb) had killed his son: “It [his son’s murder] was a result of Berezovsky’s activity. It was him didn’t want Alexander, after coming back to Russia, to be able to tell somebody about what he had done and about his business in London. I believe that the polonium was used just to mislead everyone and that it was skillfully placed everywhere in London where Alexander was present.”47

  Luke Harding visited the Litvinenko family in Italy in 2010. Both he and Goldfarb had the same explanation for Valter’s change of mind on his son’s murder. Valter and his family there (which by then included a daughter, her husband, and children) had fallen into dire financial straits because Maxim Litvinenko’s restaurant business had failed. Valter’s wife died in 2011 and he was grief-stricken, still not having gotten over his son’s murder. Also, Berezovsky had cut the family off financially, after initially being very generous in his support. In Goldfarb’s words, from his testimony for the Inquiry: “Well, he’s [Valter] an old man, he had a tremendous loss … his second wife died and he was devastated … and also there were financial problems, this I know, because some time before … Valter complained publicly that he was cut off by Berezovsky from financial support and that Berezovsky stopped taking his calls.”48 Not surprisingly, for Marina Litvinenko, Valter’s sudden turnaround “was absolutely shocking for me.” (Especially painful was that Valter called his son a traitor.) Marina has not communicated with him since then.49 She rightfully feels a strong sense of betrayal, but grief has strange ways of manifesting itself, and Valter was undoubtedly a victim of deliberate disinformation and intense pressure on him exerted by the Kremlin.

  It is significant that the Kremlin would put such great effort into having Valter Litvinenko interviewed almost six years after the murder. Given that British inquest proceedings into Litvinenko’s death were resumed in late 2011 after a long interval, Russian authorities were doubtless preparing a case in defense of Lugovoy and Kovtun. In December 2012, the Russian Investigative Committee applied for “interested person status” in the inquest and it was thereafter formally represented by British solicitors at both the inquest and, later, the Inquiry hearings.

  However much the Russian Investigative Committee would have liked to obstruct the progress of the Litvinenko Inquiry, it only was successful insofar as it prevented transcripts of interviews by British police of Lugovoy and Kovtun in Moscow from being admitted as evidence. (The interviews themselves, conducted in Moscow in December 2006, were hampered greatly by the lack of cooperation on the part of Russian authorities.) Also, the length of the Inquiry hearings was prolonged by Kovtun’s indication that he would appear as a core participant to answer questions via video link from Moscow. Later, supported by legal arguments put forth by the Russian Investigative Committee, he backed out.

  When Sir Robert produced his report on the Litvinenko Inquiry in January 2016, his judgment against Lugovoy and Kovtun was unambiguous: “I am sure that Mr. Lugovoy and Mr. Kovtun placed the polonium 210 in the teapot at the Pine Bar on 1 November 2006. I am also sure that they did this with the intention of poisoning Mr. Litvinenko … I am sure that Mr. Lugovoy and Mr. Kovtun were acting on behalf of others when they poisoned Mr. Litvinenko.” As for the possible role of Putin, Sir Robert was equivocal, concluding that “The FSB operation to kill Mr. Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr. Patrushev [head of the FSB] and also by President Putin.”50

  The reaction in Russia was predictable, given that the majority of Russians rely on state-sponsored television for their news. Over 50 percent of those polled by Russia’s Levada Center rejected Owen’s conclusions, opting instead for the Kremlin’s version—that Berezovsky had killed Litvinenko in collusion with the British security services.51 Even those who accepted the British judgment made their loyalties to the Kremlin clear. In fact, just after the murder, Russian parliamentary members had chimed in to say that Litvinenko got what he deserved. On November 24, 2006, Sergei Abelstev said on the floor of the Russian Duma: “The deserved punishment reached the traitor. I am sure his terrible death will be a warning to all the traitors that in Russia treason is not to be forgiven.” He added that “I would recommend to citizen Berezovsky to avoid any food at the commemorative feast for Litvinenko.”52

  According to Russian journalist Alexander Baunov: “Public opinion is the complete opposite of that in Britain. The view here is that these guys [Lugovoy and Kovtun] are heroes because they punished a traitor.”53 In taking this stance, Russians were following cues from Putin, who in March 2015 conveyed a presidential medal of honor on Lugovoy “for services to the motherland” in the midst of the London Inquiry proceedings that were producing daily evidence of Lugovoy’s role as a killer of Litvinenko. Putin, again, had managed to deflect blame for the assassination of an opponent, in a killing he had sponsored. As usual, suspicions of his involvement were widespread, due to overwhelming circumstantial and forensic evidence, but there was no smoking gun.

  Stanislav Markelov.

  (Photograph courtesy of ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo)

  Natalia Estemirova.

  (Photograph courtesy of Matthew Ford/Camera Press/Redux)

  9

  CONTINUED ONSLAUGHT AGAINST KREMLIN CHALLENGERS

  Markelov’s murder is a declaration of war. Now the question is, whose side is the state on?

  —Natalia Estemirova, January 2009

  I am deeply shocked by the brutal murder of the well-known human rights activist and journalist Natalia Estemirova Husainovna. This crime will be investigated thoroughly and the perpetrators punished. Natalia Estemirova Husainovna defended the universality and indivisibility of all human rights.

  —Dmitri Medvedev, telegram to the Memorial Office in Grozny, Chechnya, July 18, 2009

  The murder of Litvinenko in November 2006 did, at the time, elicit what seemed to be a strong reaction from the West. But, in the end, there were few long-term repercussions for Russia. In May 2007, Resolution 154 was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, and it was finally passed on April 1, 2008, while Bush was still the president. The resolution read as follows:

  Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) the fatal radiation poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko raises significant concerns about the potential involvement of elements of the Russian government in Mr. Litvinenko’s death, and about the security and proliferation of radioactive materials; (2) the use of such radioactive materials demonstrates a threat to the safety and security of the people of the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries; and (3) the President of the United States and the Secretary of State should urge Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials of the Russian government to cooperate fully with the British government in its investigation into Mr. Litvinenko’s death and to ensure the security of the production, storage, distribution, and export of polonium 210 as a material that may become dangerous to large numbers of people if utilized by terrorism.1

  Also in May 2007, the House introduced Resolution 151, on the unexplained deaths of Russian journalists, including Ivan Safronov, a correspondent for Kommersant. Safronov had written an article about the failure of a Russian ballistic missile test, reportedly offending Putin and his military leaders, and was about to report on planned Russian arms sales to pariah states Syria and Iran. Safronov fell to his death from a window in his apartment in March 2007. Russian prosecutors deemed the death a suicide, but Safronov’s family and colleagues suspected murder. House Resolution 151, passed in June 2007, called upon President Bush to offer Putin U.S. law enforcement assistance in investigating the many unexplained murders of Russian journalists.2 Meanwhile, in Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced in July 2007 that the UK was expelling four Russian diplomats in response to Russia’s refusal to extradite Litvinenko’s accused killer, Andrei Lugovoy.


  Unfortunately, these Western measures had little effect. They did not stop the killings. Putin knew full well that the West’s overriding need to engage Russia in many pressing global matters would prevent a confrontation over what he was doing to his own people. There was a lull in 2008, but shortly after Barack Obama took office in January 2009 the murders began anew, aimed against Kremlin critics of Russia’s repressive actions in Chechnya. As I have discussed, both Politkovskaya and Litvinenko exposed the terrible human-rights abuses that occurred in Chechnya. But Western governments continued to put the Chechen issue on the back burner, in the interest of diplomacy with Russia.

  As one American Russia expert observed in: “Russia’s moves to crush separatist sympathies in Chechnya were deftly transformed by the Putin government into the larger Global War on Terror.… While never openly stated, a deal of sorts was worked out whereby Russia would agree to assist the U.S. in its fight against global terrorism, in exchange for silencing the rhetoric over indiscriminate Russian force in Chechnya.”3 With Politkovskaya and Litvinenko dead, it was up to other Russian reporters and human-rights activists to call the Kremlin to account for its war crimes in Chechnya. But, as might have been predicted, the most forceful of these critics would also become victims of the Kremlin’s vengeance.

  Stanislav Markelov

  Stanislav Markelov, married and the father of two small children, was a Russian human-rights attorney. Born in 1974, he graduated from the prestigious Moscow State Juridical Academy in 1996 and quickly gained prominence as a respected legal authority and political activist. In 1997, he became a member of the Inter-Republic Collegium of Advocates and the International Union of Advocates. Beginning in 2006, he was president of the prestigious Russian Rule of Law Institute. Markelov took up many controversial cases tied to military-crime, human-rights, and ecological issues. According to his friend Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch: “Stas [Markelov] was one of those people prepared to give his life for the cause.”4