Litvinenko probably murdered on Putin's orders

[Thanas]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/j ... s-of-putin

Litvinenko 'probably murdered on personal orders of Putin'

Public inquiry concludes there is ‘strong probability’ two Russian agents were ordered by FSB to poison former spy

The former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was probably murdered on the personal orders of Vladimir Putin, the UK public inquiry into his death has found.

Litvinenko, who died from radioactive poisoning in a London hospital in November 2006, was killed by two Russian agents, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, the inquiry report said. There was a “strong probability” they were acting on behalf of the Russian FSB secret service, the report added.

Sir Robert Owen, the inquiry chair, said that taken as a whole the open evidence that had been heard in court amounted to a “strong circumstantial case” that the Russian state was behind the assassination.

But when he took into account all the evidence available to him, including a “considerable quantity” of secret intelligence that was not aired in open court, he found “that the FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by [Nikolai] Patrushev [head of the security service in 2006] and also by President Putin”.

Marina Litvinenko, Alexander’s widow, welcomed the report’s “damning finding” and called for the UK to impose sanctions on Russia, in a statement read outside the Royal Courts of Justice, where the inquiry took place. But she claimed she had been given indications that the UK would do nothing.

She added: “I’m also calling for the imposing of targeted economic sanctions and travel bans against named individuals ... including Mr Putin. I received a letter last night from the home secretary promising action ... [but] it [signalled] that the prime minister would do nothing in the face of the damaging findings of Sir Robert Owen.”

At the morning lobby briefing, Downing Street said the findings were “extremely disturbing” but added that the government would have to weigh up any further actions in light of the need to work with Russia on tackling Isis.

David Cameron’s official spokeswoman said the report “regrettably confirms what we and previous governments already believed to date”.

“We have to weigh carefully the need to take measures with the broader need to work with Russia on certain issues,” she said. The spokeswoman added: “When you look at the threat from Daesh, it is an example of where you put... national security first.”

She said measures taken against Russia have included expelling four embassy officials, tighter visa controls on diplomatic staff and limiting cooperation with the FSB were still in place.

The inquiry also found:

• Organisations and individuals within the Russian state had multiple motives to kill Litvinenko, including a “personal ... antagonism” between the dead man and Putin.
“Leading opponents of President Putin, including those living outside Russia, were at risk of assassination … One of the risks they faced was that of being poisoned.”

• It is “entirely possible” that Lugovoi had been planning to target and potentially murder Litvinenko from as early as 2004.

• Putin’s favourable treatment of Lugovoi in the years since the murder shows “that the Russian state approves of Mr Litvinenko’s killing, or at least that it wishes to signal approval for it”.

• A T-shirt sent by Lugovoi to Boris Berezovsky, a Russian exile and close Litvinenko ally, in 2010, reading “Nuclear death is knocking at your door”, “can only be seen as [Lugovoi’s] gleeful acknowledgement of his part in Mr Litvinenko’s death”.

• Suggestions that Litvinenko could instead have been killed on the orders of the Russian mafia were “not implausible” given the dead man’s work in exposing their links to the Kremlin, but were not supported by the available evidence.

In response to the report, Moscow was glacial. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, said: “We regret that a purely criminal case has been politicised and has darkened the general atmosphere of our bilateral relations.”

She added that the public inquiry “had a clear political subtext”, criticising the fact that some evidence had been heard in closed session.

“Taking this into account, there were little grounds to expect that the final report of a process that was politically motivated and highly opaque, and prepared with a pre-determined ‘correct’ result in mind, would suddenly turn out to be objective and balanced,” she said.

Lugovoi, who is now an MP with a nationalist political party in Russia, described the inquiry’s findings as absurd. He told Interfax: “As we expected, there was no sensation. The results released today just show London’s anti-Russian position once again; the narrow-mindedness and lack of desire among the British to find the real reason for the death of Litvinenko.

“The 2014 events in Ukraine, which coincided with the resumption of the investigation into the Litvinenko case even though previously it had been declared secret, look like a pathetic attempt by London to use a ‘skeleton in the cupboard’ to support their political ambitions. I hope this ‘polonium process’ will once and for all dispel the myth about the impartiality of British justice.”

An unnamed source speaking to the state-owned news agency RIA was quoted as saying: “Moscow will not accept the verdict of the British court in the Litvinenko case. London has violated the principle of presumption of innocence.”

Echoing the view expressed by a string of Russian officials in recent days, the unnamed source added that Moscow found it “illegitimate” that parts of the trial had been kept secret, and predicted “serious consequences” for relations between London and Moscow.

The findings will cause a significant diplomatic headache for the British government. Litvinenko, a former agent in the FSB, had acquired British citizenship shortly before his death, after fleeing Russia six years earlier, and David Cameron will come under pressure to respond robustly to the state-sponsored assassination of a UK citizen on the streets of London.

While he lay dying in a London hospital bed, Litvinenko had pointedly accused the Russian president of being behind the murder, telling Metropolitan police officers that the order “could have been given by only one person” – Putin.

Chris Bryant, the shadow leader of the house, said he “fully understood why Britain wants to engage with Russia – it is a key player in Syria and Iran”. But he added: “The one thing we know about the murderous kleptomaniac regime in Russia is that it walks all over the weak. Putin has no respect for those that let him do what he wants.

“In March 2012 the government declared unanimously it wanted to introduce the Magnitsky Act ensuring no one involved in the murder of Magnitsky or the corruption that he unveiled should be able to enter this country. The US has such an act. Is it not time we made absolutely clear that Russian murderers are not welcome in this country and the likes of Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitiri Kovtun can only enter the country if they are prepared to stand trial?”

Tony Brenton, who was British ambassador to Russia at the time of the killing, said that while the UK must react strongly to the murder, tearing up diplomatic relations with Moscow was “not in Britain’s interests”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, he said: “We have quite important other fish to fry with the Russians. They are very important in carrying the Iran de-nuclearisation; they are absolutely crucial in sorting out the mess in Syria.”

The poison used in the killing – the radioactive isotope polonium-210 – is exceptionally toxic and posed a huge potential public health risk, after traces of it were left in multiple locations around London by the murderers.

As expected.

[Purple]

So a court belonging to a country that along with the rest of the EU is ideologically bent against Putin concludes that possibly, probably, we ain't sure but it seems like it Putin did a bad thing? Color me shocked and surprised.

Now don't get me wrong. I would not be surprised one bit if he did order it. But frankly I see this for what it is. A propaganda coup. And I would say the same if it was a Russian court made a judgment on say Obama.

[Grumman]

I quite enjoyed reading this article on the subject.

So a court belonging to a country that along with the rest of the EU is ideologically bent against Putin concludes that possibly, probably, we ain't sure but it seems like it Putin did a bad thing? Color me shocked and surprised.

Has it occurred to you that your logic might be arse-backwards? Wouldn't it be more suspicious if the EU didn't distrust someone they thought was murdering people because he was in bed with the Russian mafia?

[Alyrium Denryle]

So a court belonging to a country that along with the rest of the EU is ideologically bent against Putin concludes that possibly, probably, we ain't sure but it seems like it Putin did a bad thing? Color me shocked and surprised.

Now don't get me wrong. I would not be surprised one bit if he did order it. But frankly I see this for what it is. A propaganda coup. And I would say the same if it was a Russian court made a judgment on say Obama.

It might be a propaganda coup, but it is also probably true. Everyone here had a pretty good idea who did it back in 2006 because... Holy Shit. Former russian spy now british journalist/intelligence consultant investigating mafia ties to the russian government and set to testify before a spanish prosecutor gets assassinated with polonium-210 . Of course it was the FSB. It COULD have been the russian mafia, but given the interconnectedness, either way the russian government was involved. Unless you think someone with a personal connection hired a hitman who specializes in the use of radiation sources for poisoning.

Now there is just the evidence to figure out which of the two it was.

[K. A. Pital]

Spies get killed all the time. Job hazard, especially if you turn.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If you are going to betray your country, becoming a target of a hit isn't something unheard of.

Of course, I suspect the UK government wants to distract the populace from some other problem.

[Jub]

Honestly, would we rather that Putin signed off on a drone strike instead, Obama style?

[Napoleon the Clown]

So a court belonging to a country that along with the rest of the EU is ideologically bent against Putin concludes that possibly, probably, we ain't sure but it seems like it Putin did a bad thing? Color me shocked and surprised.

Now don't get me wrong. I would not be surprised one bit if he did order it. But frankly I see this for what it is. A propaganda coup. And I would say the same if it was a Russian court made a judgment on say Obama.

It might be a propaganda coup, but it is also probably true. Everyone here had a pretty good idea who did it back in 2006 because... Holy Shit. Former russian spy now british journalist/intelligence consultant investigating mafia ties to the russian government and set to testify before a spanish prosecutor gets assassinated with polonium-210 . Of course it was the FSB. It COULD have been the russian mafia, but given the interconnectedness, either way the russian government was involved. Unless you think someone with a personal connection hired a hitman who specializes in the use of radiation sources for poisoning.

Now there is just the evidence to figure out which of the two it was.

I don't know that even the Russian mob could get their hands on that shit without government support. You can't exactly synthesize it in the back of a Chevy Corsica, it takes a damn particle accelerator. Of course, how separate of entities are the Russian mafia and the Russian government? Sounds like the difference is largely academic. Saying the Russian government might have been involved in this is roughly the same as saying that the US government might have been the source of the VX getting released in the Dugway sheep incident. (Dugway seems like a legitimate fuck-up, though?)

What's so suspicious about concluding Putin, a former KGB agent with a known history of becoming violently enraged by people making fun of him, would have a spy killed? Especially when his political opponents have a habit of getting arrested and imprisoned on charges that could charitably be called suspicious? Or political opponents vanishing? Being murdered in broad daylight and the police never really try to find the perps?

[Broomstick]

Honestly, would we rather that Putin signed off on a drone strike instead, Obama style?

It's not like the hit was risk-free to others - Polonium spread around the sushi bar and affected other people, although apparently no other serious illness occurred. But it could have.

And it's not like the verdict is shocking or anything. There are very, very few sources of polonium in this world, it narrowed down the list of suspects considerably.

[K. A. Pital]

Of course, how separate of entities are the Russian mafia and the Russian government?

Many people tried to answer that question only to find themselves under the asphalt. I don't think there's a separation between the highest levels of the asset-controlling oligarchy and the highest levels of the crime world. At least, it wasn't so in the oil and gas or the wood processing industry, so I don't think it is different in other sectors of the Russian economy.

[SpottedKitty]

It's not like the hit was risk-free to others - Polonium spread around the sushi bar and affected other people, although apparently no other serious illness occurred.

Not just the bar, the trace of the radiation was followed across London. And something mentioned in the BBC news report I heard earlier that I didn't know for sure before, the teapot was reused at least once before it was found to be still radioactive. That means whoever washed it, as well as anyone who got near the water it was washed in, were also put at risk.

[Grumman]

...That means whoever washed it, as well as anyone who got near the water it was washed in, were also put at risk.

Polonium 210 is almost exclusively an alpha emitter, which is no doubt why it was used as a murder weapon: because it is the most deadly form of radiation when ingested and the least deadly when it's not. The next person to drink from the teapot would be most at risk, but even then it's only whatever polonium and/or secondary radiation sources got on the teapot after most of the polonium was tipped down the drain, stayed on the teapot while it was being washed, and then got from the teapot back into the next pot of tea.

[mr friendly guy]

So Litvinenko was killed because he was about to accuse Putin of being a paedophile

http://nypost.com/2016/01/21/murdered-e ... edophilia/

The gadfly dissident also recounted in his article Putin’s creepy behavior in one incident in 2006. As news cameras rolled in a tourist-crammed public square near the Kremlin, Putin lifted the shirt of a little boy and kissed him on the bare belly, explaining later, “I wanted to cuddle him like a kitten, and it came out in this gesture.”

“Nobody can understand why the Russian president did such a strange thing as kissing the stomach of an unfamiliar small boy,” Litvinenko noted in the article.

Do politicians here still kiss babies?

Putin is many things, some of which I am certainly not a fan of, but there has been zero evidence that he is a paedophile. But it seems like a standard character assassination tool to accuse a person you don't like of being a paedophile, and its making it hard for me to see this as anything other than a cheap attempt at propaganda with less subtlety than the Chinese communist party. But it scores an A for being very blatant.

Note - there is a good chance Putin was involved. However suspicion is not the same as evidence.

I am going to call it right here. Eventually a leader of <insert country here> will jail a dissident (say within the next 10 years), Western reports will say he does so because said dissident was going to call him a paedophile.

[Napoleon the Clown]

It's not like the hit was risk-free to others - Polonium spread around the sushi bar and affected other people, although apparently no other serious illness occurred.

Not just the bar, the trace of the radiation was followed across London. And something mentioned in the BBC news report I heard earlier that I didn't know for sure before, the teapot was reused at least once before it was found to be still radioactive. That means whoever washed it, as well as anyone who got near the water it was washed in, were also put at risk.

Polonium-210, as mentioned, is an alpha emitter. You can stop the particles with a sheer of paper, or your skin for that matter. Meaning that being in the same room as it isn't dangerous to your health. It's only once it gets inside your body that you're at risk.

People who may have ingested traces of it could be at increased risk of cancer, but I don't really know how much because I've never taken the time to examine cancer risk from an alpha emitter. The guy the teapot isn't at any greater risk for anything, and the traces left behind probably weren't enough to be a high risk to anyone who drank from it later. Keep in mind, bananas are high in potassium which means they're gonna have Potassium-40, the radioisotope of potassium most commonly found in nature. K-40 accounts only for about 0.012%, which puts the K-40 content of a typical banana around half a milligram of the stuff. And this results in a measurable amount of radiation from the banana. K-40's half-life is also stupid long, so it's not strongly radioactive. Basically, we can detect incredibly minute amounts of radiation.

[SpottedKitty]

The guy the teapot isn't at any greater risk for anything, and the traces left behind probably weren't enough to be a high risk to anyone who drank from it later.

I know the risk is probably low, but it's in water. Water spashes around, droplets can be suspended in air long enough to float around.

Keep in mind, bananas are high in potassium which means they're gonna have Potassium-40, the radioisotope of potassium most commonly found in nature. K-40 accounts only for about 0.012%, which puts the K-40 content of a typical banana around half a milligram of the stuff.

Don't forget, there are a few things that potassion (any isotope) isn't — like a heavy metal, or seriously toxic in its own right in ridiculously tiny amounts. Polonium is both; it isn't just a radiation risk.

[Grumman]

Keep in mind, bananas are high in potassium which means they're gonna have Potassium-40, the radioisotope of potassium most commonly found in nature. K-40 accounts only for about 0.012%, which puts the K-40 content of a typical banana around half a milligram of the stuff.

Don't forget, there are a few things that potassion (any isotope) isn't — like a heavy metal, or seriously toxic in its own right in ridiculously tiny amounts. Polonium is both; it isn't just a radiation risk.

No, it is pretty much just a radiation risk. If it is toxic due to being a heavy metal, it's not even a rounding error compared to the radiation risk.

[Lord Revan]

Keep in mind, bananas are high in potassium which means they're gonna have Potassium-40, the radioisotope of potassium most commonly found in nature. K-40 accounts only for about 0.012%, which puts the K-40 content of a typical banana around half a milligram of the stuff.

Don't forget, there are a few things that potassion (any isotope) isn't — like a heavy metal, or seriously toxic in its own right in ridiculously tiny amounts. Polonium is both; it isn't just a radiation risk.

No, it is pretty much just a radiation risk. It's not even a rounding error compared to the radiation risk.

so short lived? I mean Uranium is practically harmless when it comes to radiation (even U-235 not just U-238) outside of an active nuclear reactor but is highly toxic to point that isn't actually more of a threat then the radiation.

[Grumman]

No, it is pretty much just a radiation risk. It's not even a rounding error compared to the radiation risk.

so short lived? I mean Uranium is practically harmless when it comes to radiation (even U-235 not just U-238) outside of an active nuclear reactor but is highly toxic to point that isn't actually more of a threat then the radiation.

Two billion times shorter. "Highly toxic" by uranium standards is not "highly toxic" by polonium standards. Polonium-210 is something in the ballpark of 50,000 times more toxic than uranium is, and that's entirely due to the radiation. It would be like being worried about heavy metal poisoning when someone had their head bashed in with a lead pipe.

[Lord Revan]

so we're talking about half-life of few years at most then for Polonium-210?

[Grumman]

so we're talking about half-life of few years at most then for Polonium-210?

It has a half-life of almost 140 days.

[Lord Revan]

so we're talking about half-life of few years at most then for Polonium-210?

It has a half-life of almost 140 days.

yeah in that case any chemical properties are more or less irrelevant next to the radiation effects (for those who might not know the lower the half-life higher the radioactivity of the material, Uranium has half-life of billions of years so it's mostly harmless).

[Napoleon the Clown]

Because of where Po-210 is on the uranium decay chain, there are minute traces of it goddamned everywhere. I feel comfortable saying that smoking a cigarette is quite probably a bigger risk factor for heavy metal and radioisotope exposure than whatever traces may have splashed into the air when the pot got washed.

Per Wikipedia: Po-210 is a decay product of radon. As a gas, radon is able to get into the atmosphere enough that as it decays you can get trace quantities of the stuff accumulating. Liver and kidney function would seem to be the best place to look for possible long-term damage. While no Po is better than any of it, there's a point where the damage it can do is so small as to be ignored, seeing as background radiation exposure is pretty meaningful. Ultimately, Po-210 decays to lead-206. Compared to other routes of exposure, Po-210 isn't going to be a terribly large risk-factor for heavy metal accumulation.

[SpottedKitty]

No, it is pretty much just a radiation risk. If it is toxic due to being a heavy metal, it's not even a rounding error compared to the radiation risk.

<headscratch> I thought I knew my radionuclides better than that; I must have managed to confuse it with some other does-you-no-good-at-all stuff that's been in the news recently. What I do remember is a mention of the "critical damage to internal organs" level being something on the order of micrograms.

[Broomstick]

If you look up various isotopes you can usually get information on what chemical damage they cause as well as the radiation hazard. Look up uranium, for example, you'll find that chemically it's very damaging to the kidneys.

You don't get that for polonium. According to Wikipedia (which is a starting point for research) lethal doses are (depending on various factors) about 10-50 nanograms if ingested/inhaled/absorbed, which makes it about 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide by weight.

Sure, if it stays outside your body it's relatively innocuous, but with lethal doses so small accidently ingesting/inhaling a dangerous amount becomes more likely. You only need a very tiny amount, after all.

Basically, the radiation hazard of polonium that gets inside you is so dangerous that either the chemical risks have never been evaluated, or else they're not seen as relevant.

[Lord Revan]

Polonium-210 as half-life of 138.4 days in material I have about it compared to 7.038*108 years for U-235 and 4.468*109 years for U-238, so Polonium-210 is more then 8 billion times more radioactive then the most common isotope of Uranium (and in case you're wondering according to info I got they're both alpha active (though U-238 also spontaniously fission)).

so needless to say the chemical effects are rather irrelevant at that case.