Abstract
With an inquiry into the death of former Russian agent Aleksandr Litvinenko ready to recommence in London,
The second reason is that Marina, a mild-mannered and resolute woman, decided that establishing the truth was of upmost importance, even if a proper trial could not take place because the two key suspects – former KGB officers Lugovoi and Kovtun ¬– would not be extradited. “When I realised Putin came back as a president and it would be a constitutional right not to extradite, we decided to establish what happened in London in 2006, so that everybody would know about it,” she told Index on Censorship. Almost nine years after Litvinenko’s death, the British government decided to open a public inquiry, which ran from 27 January to the end of March this year at the Royal Courts of Justice. It will start again in July. For Marina, this is a crucial step towards shedding full light on what happened to her Sasha, a former Russian agent, fighting what she considers to be one of the main problems in Russia: its propaganda machine.
“In 2000 Putin realised that using the media you can do whatever you want,” she said, admitting bitterly that for every version of events there will be a Russian counter-narrative, a parallel world where facts are twisted. To choose one narrative over the other requires some independence of thought as the power of Russian propaganda is immense, she argued. “It makes people become complete zombies when it comes to information,” said Marina. Putin’s push to become president was also helped along by oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The oligarch, who died in 2013, owned the largest private Russian broadcaster, ORT, and was a Putin supporter early in his political life, but grew increasingly critical of Putin’s power. Berezovsky moved to London in 2000 soon after Putin’s election as president, believing that he was in danger of arrest. After that, “he criticised Putin all the time”, said Marina.
Marina Litvinenko, the widow of murdered Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, speaks outside the Russian Embassy in London, during a demonstration
Credit: Neil Hall/Reuters
Before his death on 23 November, Litvinenko made a statement in which he openly accused Putin of responsibility for his poisoning. Among the many arguments by the Kremlin to dismiss the allegations, one called it “sheer nonsense” stating that Litvinenko was not much of a target and not worth the effort. Marina does not agree. Back in 2006, when Russian money was flowing in London, she believes her husband had a “knowledge of how, not only Putin, but people associated with Putin had a very, very dark past”, thanks to his career in the KGB-FSB, the Russian secret service. “These people wanted to make business in Europe and become respectable,” she said. The killing might have passed unnoticed, though. “It happened just by chance that polonium-210 was discovered,” said Marina.
Kovtun, one of the two men who met Sasha at the Millennium Hotel in London, will testify to the inquiry on 23 July from Moscow. Because it is an inquiry and not an inquest, there will not be a verdict, but Marina is satisfied nonetheless. She said Kovtun and Lugovoi “are already punished, their life is not the same it was before”, even though they “put on a brave face, go on TV and say they don’t care”. Moreover, she does not consider them to be the real culprits, but only “tools” that “someone used”. She said: “It’s more important to know who gave him polonium-210 and why it was possible to bring it to London.”
London is usually thought to be a safe haven for Russian dissidents, and Litvinenko was established in the community. After his death Marina learned English and became a campaigner in her own right, determined to uncover what had happened to her husband. “Now I am very happy this material started to be disclosed so that people know what happened in London,” she said. “People will be able to make their own decisions.” Although she believes the Ukrainian crisis has caused the climate between Russia and the West to change dramatically, she said her case is not “politically motivated”.
As more of a Western spotlight has been shone on Russian foreign policy, she believes it has given a greater understanding of the context of what happened to her husband. “It is more easy to understand what we are talking about,” she said, referring to the increasing criticism of Russia’s foreign policy. “Before it was much more difficult to explain how Russia under this government became criminal, a mafia state.”
When Berezovsky died, in March 2013 (he was found in his home in Berkshire, apparently after hanging himself, although a coroner said he could not rule out unlawful killing) Marina was shocked. “I knew he was not in great shape after he lost his case against Abramovich,” she said. Berezovsky had in 2011 brought a civil action in London against his fellow Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea football club, accusing him of swindling him out of a fortune, which ended the next year in complete victory for Abramovich. But she thought waiting for the Litvinenko case to be solved might somehow help him to recover, and have something to look forward to. “I can accept it but for me it is difficult to believe he committed suicide,” she said, pointing out that when Sasha died, Berezovsky was “devastated”. The oligarch, after Litvinenko’s death, “was alone”, surrounded by people who only wanted to use him, she said.
Marina has worked hard to bring attention to the case, and to try and make more details public. She went to court every day. She went through her husband’s diaries, where he wrote his version of what happened in 1996 and after, “when the ex-KGB started building their revenge” for having been “destroyed, although not completely” in 1991. According to Alexandr Litvinenko’s writings, “without control of the Communist Party, but having control of all the sources and money they would make a big problem to the world”.
Before his death, Litvinenko made a statement in which he openly accused Putin of responsibility for his poisoning
Just a couple of weeks before being poisoned, Litvinenko made a speech at the Frontline Club in London, as part of a discussion on the killing of his friend, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote extensively from Chechnya. Litvinenko said he strongly believed that Putin was involved: “I can directly answer that it is Putin, the president of the Russian Federation, who killed her”.
“What happened in Chechnya is exactly the same plan Putin wants to use for Ukraine,” claimed Marina. In nine years, she believes few things have changed. According to Marina, her husband knew about a non-official list of people the Kremlin considered to be enemies. “There was the name of Anna Politkovskaya, Berezovsky, Sasha, Ahmed Zakayev. The death of Anna became a serious sign of what these people were ready to do. But he was not scared about his friends,” said Marina. Litvinenko had thought he would be able to prevent things from happening to his friends or to himself. It turned out he was wrong.
© Cristina Marconi