by Amy Knight
Turmoil for Litvinenko in the FSB
Litvinenko became close to oligarch Boris Berezovsky, moonlighting as his part-time bodyguard after he allegedly saved Berezovsky from being assassinated in 1994. (Moscow was a rough-and-tumble world and Berezovsky, with his various entrepreneurial enterprises—the auto industry, broadcasting, airlines, and oil—not only was very rich, but had many enemies.) Litvinenko started meeting with Berezovsky regularly (apparently with the approval of his FSB superiors) and even accompanied him on a trip to Switzerland in March 1995, to provide security. Litvinenko came to Berezovsky’s defense that same month when Berezovsky was about to be arrested by the FSB as a suspect in the murder of television host Vlad Listev. According to Marina Litvinenko, her husband rushed to Berezovsky’s office and threatened the FSB officers at gunpoint, whereupon they departed.13 Berezovsky was hugely grateful: “That Sasha was brave enough to help me without any regard for his own safety or position was a gesture that I deeply appreciated.… I believe Sasha saved my life.”14
In August 1997, Litvinenko was transferred to the top secret Division of Operations Against Organized Crime (URPO) of the FSB. This division engaged in kidnappings and extrajudicial killings of mafia figures and rebel Chechens. Goldfarb recalled much later that “when he told me about URPO, Sasha was aware that his revelations cast a measure of suspicion on him.… He did not deny that he had been told to do illegal things before, but the URPO was a totally new world. Orders were verbal, there were no records, deniability was essential.”15 Litvinenko had entered a dark world.
Some months later, Litvinenko and several colleagues were secretly enlisted by rogue members of the FSB to murder Berezovsky, but they refused, and Litvinenko informed Berezovsky about the plot. Here is Berezovsky’s rendition of what happened: “In July 1998, Vladimir Putin, who at that time was little known, replaced Nikolai Kovalyov as head of the FSB and I revealed the plot to him and arranged for Sasha [Litvinenko] to meet him, which he did.”16 The meeting between Putin and Litvinenko was bizarre, to say the least. As Litvinenko described it: “He came out from behind the desk … to greet me. Apparently he wanted to show an open, likeable personality. We, operatives, have a special style of behavior. We do not bow to each other, do without pleasantries—and so everything is clear. Just look into each other’s eyes and it becomes clear, do you trust the person or not. And I immediately had the impression that he is not sincere.”17 Litvinenko handed Putin a detailed report he had prepared, outlining the corruption within the government and the FSB. Putin feigned interest and said he would look into the matter, but nothing happened, except that Litvinenko was suddenly put under FSB surveillance.
Frustrated with Putin’s lack of reaction, Berezovsky wrote an open letter to the newspaper Kommersant (which he controlled) and then arranged for Litvinenko and his colleagues to reveal the plot to kill him at a televised press conference. According to Berezovsky, “the target of the complaint was not Mr. Putin, and he was not an ‘enemy’: rather, we appealed to him as the new head of the FSB to address corruption. However, these events left Mr. Putin embarrassed and he criticized the whistleblowers. The fact that Sasha chose to align himself with me against the FSB sealed his fate as an ‘enemy’ of the FSB and a traitor.”18 For Marina Litvinenko, the press conference, which generated huge publicity, was a complete surprise: “I was shocked. Sasha had not told me beforehand.”19
Escape
Litvinenko paid for his insubordination by being fired from his job and twice sent to prison on trumped-up charges, but managed to be released in late 1999. In the meantime, a Russian journalist and historian living in the United States, Yuri Felshtinsky, befriended him and started seeing him on visits to Moscow. Felshtinsky was part of the Berezovsky entourage and was planning to write a biography of the oligarch, although he had disapproved strongly of Berezovsky’s advocacy of Putin as the next Russian president. In an effort to protect Litvinenko from further reprisals by the FSB, Felshtinsky, who apparently had connections in Russian security circles, met with Litvinenko’s former boss in URPO, General Igor Khokholkov, in May 2000. According to Felshtinsky, Khokholkov told him that “Litvinenko committed treason, that he is going to enter prison [again] anyway, and if he [Khokholkov] actually sees him by chance, you know somewhere in a dark corner, he would kill him with his own hands.”20 Felshtinsky then convinced Litvinenko that he needed to leave Russia, lest he be sent back to prison or, even worse, killed.
Litvinenko was reluctant: “What am I going to do abroad? I don’t speak any languages.” But at the end of September 2000, he made his escape to Georgia. The rest was a cloak-and-dagger tale, with Berezovsky micro-managing it from his extravagant villa in the south of France. Felshtinsky flew over from Boston and met Litvinenko in Tbilisi. He contacted the American Embassy there about the possibility of asylum for Litvinenko, against Berezovsky’s wishes, but to no avail. Litvinenko was distraught, incautiously walking the streets of Tbilisi, where the Russians had agents everywhere. Meanwhile, Marina and their six-year-old son Anatoly were waiting things out in Malaga, Spain. Finally, a decision was made for the Litvinenkos to meet up in Anatalya, Turkey, via Berezovsky’s private plane.21
For Marina, this turn of events was overwhelming. Although she had known that her husband worked for the security services when she married him in 1994, Marina was in the dark about most of the details, and her husband’s imprisonment and sudden escape from Russia threw her for a loop. She needed a lot of persuasion to leave her beloved country, and her family, forever. She and Sasha talked over the phone many times while she was in Spain. Marina thought it was best for all of them to return to Russia, even if it meant another prison term for her husband. But Sasha convinced her that if they went back to Russia, her life and that of their son would be in jeopardy. As Marina said in her testimony for the Inquiry: a “very serious point from Sasha was my life and life of our son in dangers [sic] as well. He said, they will put me in prison, I’ll not be able to protect you.”22
Felshtinsky stayed briefly in Anatalya and then turned things over to Alex Goldfarb, who played a major role in getting the Litvinenko family to Britain, where they gained entry in November 2000 and asylum some months later. But it was not an easy process. Goldfarb, who like Felshtinsky had American citizenship, knew influential people in Washington because of his work as a top aide to the philanthropist George Soros. He too tried to get Litvinenko asylum in the United States, driving him and his family to Ankara and bringing them to the American Embassy, where Litvinenko had an interview with the CIA. The effort did not work out. Goldfarb, at this point desperate, drove to Istanbul with the Litvinenkos, who were terrified for their safety. After consultations with Berezovsky, a decision was made for them to fly to London, where Goldfarb had to use all his powers of persuasion to calm British immigration officers at Heathrow Airport—who were furious at being dumped with a major diplomatic problem—and convince them to accept the Litvinenkos.23
Goldfarb later recalled how Litvinenko, during the long night drive from Ankara to Istanbul, with Marina and Anatoly asleep in the back seat, had recounted his turbulent history in the security services: “Night driving loosens lips.… Within three hours I knew Sasha’s whole story, except perhaps for the secret that had created such a furor at the CIA.”24 Eventually Goldfarb heard an explanation from a retired American spy as to why the CIA decided against taking in Litvinenko: the Russians had found out that Litvinenko was in Turkey and seeking asylum in the United States. They apparently gave the Americans the message that, if they accepted Litvinenko, the Kremlin would retaliate and cause trouble. The Americans, in turn, must have decided that it simply was not worth the possible consequences to accept the defector. But was there a deeper reason for their refusal, perhaps relating to Litvinenko’s stormy past? Goldfarb, who was to become one of Litvinenko’s closest friends over the coming years in London, apparently gave up on this question and made peace with Litvinenko’s dubious history as a security operative in Russia.
He observed after Litvinenko’s murder: “As I was coming to grips with his death, I realized that in Sasha I witnessed a miracle of transformation of the kind when black turns white, right and wrong change places, death and salvation reverse punishment and reward. Within the six short years from the time he fled Russia, a scared and confused member of a corrupt and murderous clique, he became a crusader.”25
These words ring true. Litvinenko, living in a free society for the first time in his life and associating with people who were committed to promoting democracy in Russia, saw the light. With the same energy and commitment he had devoted to his job as an officer of the Soviet/Russian security services, he threw himself into the struggle against the Putin regime.
Litvinenko in London
Litvinenko did not find his new life in London easy. Marina and Anatoly quickly learned English, but Litvinenko’s progress with the language was difficult. Marina was carving out her own life as a physical fitness expert and dancer, and Anatoly was in school. Litvinenko was more at loose ends. Obsessed with what was going on in Russia, he devoted much of his time to meeting with exiled or visiting Russians, Chechens, and Georgians, and writing scathing denunciations of Putin and the Kremlin. He was also starting to consult for private British security firms that did due-diligence appraisals for companies undertaking business in Russia.
Litvinenko was living with the knowledge that he was a marked man. In late 2002, a former FSB colleague in Moscow sent him an email saying he had heard from a highly placed FSB official that the agency had plans to exterminate Litvinenko as a traitor. “You had better start writing your will,” the colleague advised. Then in September 2004, someone threw firebombs at the London homes of Litvinenko and Akhmed Zakaev, a former Chechen government leader. (The two were neighbors.) The police never found the culprits. And later, in 2006, according to Marina Litvinenko, she and her husband learned that Litvinenko’s photograph was being used for target practice at a special-forces training center in Russia where he had once served.26
Litvinenko took care of himself by keeping physically fit. Unlike many Russians in his line of work, he did not drink alcohol or smoke. (This may explain why he would survive more than three weeks after being lethally poisoned.) And he had some loyal friends, including Zakaev. A strikingly handsome former Shakespearean actor, who I interviewed in London in 2015, Zakaev fought against Russia in the first Chechen war and was briefly foreign minister of Chechnya. Having fled abroad in 2000, Zakaev, accused of being a terrorist by the Kremlin, is one of the few Chechen separatist leaders to still be alive. After Zakaev gained asylum in Britain in 2002 and moved to London, the Litvinenko and Zakaev families became inseparable, seeing each other on a daily basis and often sharing meals. Part of this bond came from the fact that, after his history as an FSB officer in Chechnya, when Russian forces were brutally suppressing Chechen separatists in the mid-1990s, Litvinenko did a complete turnaround and dedicated himself to the Chechen cause. He even converted to Islam shortly before he died, insisting on being buried with traditional Muslim funeral rites.
On a typical day, Litvinenko would take the London Underground or bus from his home in Muswell Hill to Piccadilly Circus. After spending considerable time talking animatedly with the Russian man who sold matryoshkas (Russian nesting dolls) on the corner, he would pop in unexpectedly at the offices of the various British consulting firms with whom he was forging relationships, and then perhaps meet with his contact at MI6 (British Foreign Intelligence), “Martin.” He would occasionally end his day at the office of his mentor, Berezovsky, who had moved from France to Britain in October 2001.
It is not clear exactly when Litvinenko started working with MI6. Marina recounted for the Inquiry that, after a few years, maybe in 2004, £2000 were deposited monthly in their bank account from British authorities. She said she was not sure whether it came from MI5 (counterintelligence) or MI6, but other sources confirm that it was MI6. Litvinenko’s relationship with this agency remains vague (the information is classified), but Goldfarb recalled that Litvinenko was consulting for MI6 on Russian organized crime in Europe.27
Russian journalist Iuliia Latynina later scoffed at Litvinenko as an informant for MI6: “Litvinenko’s sources about the secret underpinnings of the Kremlin were from the Kompromat.ru website … the most scandalous part of this story is that MI6 paid for Litvinenko’s retellings in English, which, by the way, he did not know.”28 Whether or not Latynina is correct, the fact remains that British authorities were not on the ball. In retrospect, they should have at least kept a closer watch on Litvinenko, both for his own protection and to prevent a notorious crime being committed on their soil.
Litvinenko began consulting work in early 2006 for a private British security firm called RISC. He also became involved with two other security companies in London, Erinys and Titon International. One report that he handed over to Erinys in September 2006 was of particular interest: it was a dossier on Putin’s ally Viktor Ivanov, at the time the head of the Russian anti-drug agency. According to this report, Ivanov, while working for the security services in St. Petersburg during the nineties, was engaged in laundering money from drug cartels and other illegal activities that involved organized-crime figures. Putin, then a deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, provided Ivanov with protection and even took part in these criminal operations.29
Meanwhile, Litvinenko became involved with an Italian parliamentary group, the so-called Mitrokhin Commission, which was investigating Russian organized crime. Litvinenko provided enough information for the commission to conclude that Putin, the FSB, and the Kremlin were deeply involved in corrupt activities, and they passed this on to the Americans.30 The Italian consultant for the commission, Mario Scaramella, who got to know Litvinenko well, was initially thought to be connected with his murder, but was exonerated. Litvinenko was also in contact with Spanish police authorities. According to an American diplomatic cable, cited by WikiLeaks, Litvinenko “tipped off Spanish security officials on locations, roles, and activities of several Russian mafia figures with ties to Spain.”31
Litvinenko and Berezovsky
Berezovsky took the Litvinenko family under his wing once he arrived in London, providing a house for them and giving them other financial support, including paying for Anatoly’s tuition at the exclusive City of London School. Together in exile, Litvinenko and Berezovsky formed a close alliance in their mutual hatred of the Putin regime and devoted themselves to campaigning against the Kremlin. Berezovsky financed both of Litvinenko’s books that came out in 2002, The FSB Blows Up Russia, which, as mentioned, alleged that the FSB (with Putin) was behind the September 1999 bombings, and The Lubianka Criminal Gang, which linked Putin directly to organized crime.
Sometime in 2005 or early 2006, Berezovsky, learning about Litvinenko’s collaboration with MI6, decided to cut down on the subsidies he was giving him. According to Goldfarb, the goal was to have Litvinenko become more self-sufficient financially: “He [Litvinenko] was not upset. He was a little grouchy, in the sense that, you know, Boris could have paid more … initially he was not happy with the reduction in the money, but it was not dramatic.”32
What may have helped to seal Litvinenko’s fate with Putin was an article he wrote for the Chechen Press, which appeared in July 2006. The article was prompted by a bizarre incident in which Putin stopped to chat with a group of tourists outside the Kremlin and then went over to a small boy, lifted up his T-shirt, and kissed him on the stomach. Litvinenko wrote: “The world is shocked. Nobody can understand why the Russian president did such a strange thing,” and went on to explain that Putin had been known by KGB insiders to have been a pedophile and that there were secret tapes he destroyed once he became head of the FSB showing him having sex with underage boys.33 As Goldfarb observed: “with regard to the homosexual tape … in order to make an enemy, it does not necessarily have to be true.… I would think that if you say that … Mr. Putin is a pedophile, it would make Mr. Putin mad regardless of the fact whether
he is a pedophile or not.”34
It is hardly a coincidence that, shortly after this article came out, the Russian State Duma passed the earlier-mentioned amendment to a law on extremism. Because the category of persons subject to reprisals was expanded to include those who slandered Russians occupying government positions, the law seemed tailor-made for justifying Russian actions against Litvinenko. As British Russia expert Robert Service observed: “The wording [of the amendment] is so expansive as to enable the authorities, if such were to be their desire, to act against every kind of unfair criticism—or indeed any criticism that they deemed unfair.”35 In later testimony to British police, Berezovsky noted that “Sasha mentioned loads of times that this legislation of course was designed to get rid of us.… Moreover, he said that they would most probably try to poison us.”36
The Accused Killers: Lugovoy and Kovtun
Andrei Lugovoy was one of those shadowy, opportunistic figures whose life was intertwined with the Russian security services and the bourgeoning “big business” of the new Russia. Born in 1966, he came from a military family and attended the prestigious RSFSR Supreme Soviet Command School in Moscow. After his graduation in 1987, Lugovoy entered the KGB’s elite Ninth Directorate, responsible for protecting Kremlin officials. He continued as an officer in this capacity after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the KGB was dismantled and new security structures were created, including in 1995 the Federal Protection Service (FSO), where Lugovoy served briefly.37
Lugovoy guarded Yeltsin’s prime minister Egor Gaidar and also Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, reportedly even accompanying them to Washington, D.C. In 1996, he left the FSO and started his own private security firm, the Ninth Wave, overseeing the protection of Berezovsky’s TV station, ORT. By his own testimony, given in Moscow at the request of British prosecutors in December 2006, Lugovoy accompanied Berezovsky on a trip to Chechnya in 1998 and several times flew on Berezovsky’s plane with him to the oligarch’s villa in France. In short, the two men were close. It was through Berezovsky that Lugovoy first met Litvinenko in 1995. After ORT was seized by Putin in 2000 and Berezovsky fled Russia, Lugovoy continued running a private security agency, but also branched out into other business ventures.38