It would seem if Russia is to deny this, they need to at least attempt an investigation to the potential cause of a former FSB agent. It's getting to be fairly obvious there are issues between expatriots and journalists that need resolution to the cause and who might have done this as well as Viktor Yushchenko. I am willing to entertain the possiblity of terrorists with some of this and primarily from Chechnya , but, quite frankly if this line of demise among some people of liberation and power continues, Putin will be facing very embarrassing circumstances.
Russia has become a very powerful country with an economy to envy. It has clout and especially with the Iranians, but, that clout cannot be used frivilously to destroy possible preceived threats to it's sovereignty. This form of murder needs to be investigated and reined in by cooperation between all governments involved. It's becoming too frequent and too convenient and may very well be the power of oligarch money that is driving such corruption.
Russia has a right to the praise it deserves in many venues and congratulations for it's economic direction, but, sovereignty does not come in fear of decension, it occurs through strength of overcoming it. Russia has nothing to fear from these people. They are simply attempting to undo an old style communism by enlightening those who will listen. Vladimir Putin has lead Russia admirably in a new direction and no one here has ever sincerely been a threat to that. Russian sovereignty is intact and safely in the control of those that would see it a great country.
There was a news article in RIA Novosti, the state newspaper, about the high rates of suicide within Russia. It comes from the depression of wide spread alcholism and feeling as though the average citizen is oppressed and cannot improve their quality of life. If these stigmas are continuously attached to the Russian Identity it may not improve the voracity of a Russian in their pride for their country and THAT is more a threat to sovereignty than any of these people could ever be.
President Putin needs to take up an initative to stop such practices regardless the source or it's etiology.
Garry Kasparov, the leader of the United Civil Front, thinks differently:
"The Western public is coming to see that Russia has started a sweeping offensive against the Kremlin's opponents. We still don't know why [investigative journalist Anna] Politkovskaya was killed, but she was killed in Russia. An attempt on Litvinenko's life was made in London, which will seriously investigate it. As for the Kremlin, it does not care for its reputation because the WTO agreement has been signed."
Novye Izvestia
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20061122/55909504.html
Litvinenko Takes Turn for the Worse
Combined Reports Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was on life support after suffering heart failure overnight, a friend said Thursday, while doctors confirmed that they still did not know what substance had poisoned him.
Dr. Geoff Bellingan, director of critical care at University College Hospital, said there had been "a dramatic deterioration" in Litvinenko's condition overnight, but did not comment directly on a friend's report that the patient's heart had stopped during the night.
"We are now convinced that the cause of Mr. Litvinenko's condition was not a heavy metal such as thallium. Radiation poisoning is also unlikely," Bellingan said, reading a statement to reporters outside the hospital. "Despite extensive tests, we are still unclear as to the cause of his condition."
Bellingan, who refused to answer any questions, also dismissed speculation about spots that reportedly were seen on X-rays.
Litvinenko, a fierce critic of the Russian government, believes he was given poison on Nov. 1. His hair has fallen out, his throat is swollen and his immune and nervous systems have been damaged.
"He went into a cardiac failure overnight and the hospital put him on artificial heart support," said a friend, Alex Goldfarb.
"He's on the ventilator, he's getting artificial resuscitation," said Goldfarb, who joined Litvinenko's wife, Marina, and father by his bedside.
Anti-terrorist police were investigating the poisoning, which friends and dissidents believe was carried out at the behest of the Russian government. Litvinenko sought asylum in Britain in 2000, and has been a relentless critic of the Kremlin and the Russian security services.
The Kremlin and Foreign Intelligence Service have denied any involvement in the illness.
Litvinenko said he had two meetings on the day he first felt ill. In the morning he met at a London hotel with a Russian, identified only as Vladimir, and Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB colleague and bodyguard to tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
Lugovoi met with a British diplomat in Moscow on Thursday.
"I can confirm that Mr. Lugovoi met with the deputy ambassador this morning," a British Embassy spokesman said.
He said he could not reveal any of the details of the "private conversation" but added that Lugovoi had come on "his own initiative."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/11/24/011.html
Poisoned ex-Russian spy dies
Doctors unsure what killed the fierce critic of Putin. By Tariq Panja, Associated Press Article Launched:11/23/2006 06:35:46 PM PST
LONDON - The grave health condition of a poisoned ex-Russian spy deteriorated dramatically Thursday as heart failure left Alexander Litvinenko critically ill and on life support as family members rushed to his bedside.
Litvinenko, a fierce critic of the Russian government, remains under heavy sedation, a family friend said, as doctors struggled to determine what sickened the 43-year-old. Doctors have virtually ruled out thallium and radiation - toxins once considered possible culprits behind the poisoning.
"Despite extensive tests, we are still unclear as to the cause of his condition," said Dr. Geoff Bellingan, director of critical care at University College Hospital.
In a statement, the hospital said Litvinenko was "critically ill in intensive care."
Litvinenko believes he was given poison on Nov. 1, while investigating the slaying of another Kremlin detractor - investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
His hair has fallen out, his throat is swollen and his immune and nervous systems have been damaged. A friend, Andrei Nekrasov, said Litvinenko's skin had turned yellow, a possible effect of liver failure.
Another family friend, Alex Goldfarb, joined Litvinenko's
wife Marina, his son Anatoli and the former agent's father by his bedside. "He went into a cardiac failure overnight and the hospital put him on artificial heart support," Goldfarb said. "He's on the ventilator, he's getting artificial resuscitation."
Anti-terrorist police were investigating the poisoning, which friends and dissidents allege was carried out at the behest of the Russian government. Litvinenko sought asylum in Britain in 2000, and has been a relentless critic of the Kremlin and the Russian security services ever since.
On Wednesday, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, issued its strongest denial yet that it was involved in any assassination attempt. "Litvinenko is not the kind of person for whose sake we would spoil bilateral relations," SVR spokesman Sergei Ivanov said, according to the Interfax news agency. "It is absolutely not in our interests to be engaged in such activity."
Litvinenko worked both for the KGB and for a successor, the Federal Security Service. In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, now exiled in Britain.
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_4712697
Boris Berezovsky
The most notorious of Russia’s oligarchs, Boris Berezovsky was one of the closest members of President Boris Yeltsin’s inner-circle but fell out of favor when Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000.
Full name: Boris Abramovich Berezovsky
Born: January 23, 1946 in Moscow
In 1967, graduated from the Moscow Forestry Engineering Institute, majoring in electronics and computer science. Later Berezovsky was accepted to the Mechanics and Mathematics department of the Moscow State University, earning his Ph.D. at the age of 37
In 1969, was employed as an engineer at the Scientific Research Center for Hydrometeorology
Between 1969 and 1987, advanced from an engineering to a management position at the Management Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences
In 1989, formed the LogoVaz automotive company
In 1994 —1997, served as the chairman of the board of trustees of LogoVaz
In 1994, became General Director of the All-Russian Automobile Alliance company (AVVA)
In 1995, became a member of the board of trustees of the Russian Public Television (ORT)
In 1996, elected a member of the board of trustees of Sibneft (Siberian Oil Company)
In 1996-1997 served as Deputy Chairman of the Russian national Security Council
In 1997 became a member of the scientific council of the Security Council.
In 1998, elected Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Dismissed in 1999 by President Boris Yeltsin
On December 19, 1999, elected a member of the State Duma representing Karachayevo-Cherkessiya
In 2000, left Russia
In 2003, granted political asylum in the UK
A mathematician and computer programmer by training, in 1989, Berezovsky left the world of academia to start a business, becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the period, his interests including auto industry, oil, aluminium, and mass media. Berezovsky began his business career by buying and reselling automobiles from state manufacturer AutoVAZ. During the lawlessness of the early 1990s Berezovsky survived several assassination attempts, including a 1994 car bomb attack when his driver was killed.
During the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Berezovsky was one of the so-called oligarchs who gained access to the president, becoming a close member of Yeltsin’s inner-circle, unofficially known as the “Family”. He used this influence to acquire stakes in state companies including the car giant AutoVAZ, state airline Aeroflot, and several oil properties that he organized into Sibneft. He also founded a bank to finance his operations and acquired several news media holdings. These media provided essential support for Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996.
Already one of the most influential members of President Yeltsin’s entourage, in the mid-1990s Berezovsky openly entered politics and was appointed secretary of Russia’s National Security Council and head of the Executive Committee of the CIS. He was behind the creation of the pro-Kremlin Unity party that came second (after the Communists) in the 1999 parliamentary elections, as well as being chief negotiator of the peace treaty that ended the first Chechen war in 1996.
On July 8, 2000, Russia’s new president Vladimir Putin announced in his address that Russia would no longer tolerate ’’shady groups’’ that divert money abroad, establish their own ’’dubious’’ security services, and block the development of a liberal market economy.
Soon after Berezovsky voiced his plans to create an opposition party led by regional governors and other influential figures threatened by Putin’s drive for power. At the end of the year the prosecution declared Berezovsky the main suspect in the misappropriation of large sums from Aeroflot — Russia’s national airline in which he owned large stakes. A similar case against Berezovsky dealt with large-scale fraud in his Logovaz car company.
Berezovsky left Russia at the end of 2000. In March 2003, he was arrested in London but released on bail. In October of the same year he received political asylum in the United Kingdom. His stake in Russia’s major television company ORT (now First Channel) was sold, and his own TV6 channel was closed by a ruling of the Russian Arbitration Court. Still an active critic of President Putin, Boris Berezovsky is now living under the name of Platon Yelenin.
