NEWS:
news about the caucasus
Who lost Russia? - By Pat Buchanan 5 Jun 2007 07:35, World Net Daily... are now pushing to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. If they succeed, we could ... to transmit Caspian Sea oil across the Caucasus to the Black Sea and Turkey, cutting ...
Re-cap of main news, June 4 5 Jun 2007 06:45, RIA Novosti... MTS, a law enforcement spokesman said * Georgia was given the right to subscribe to ... move signaling tremendous progress in the South Caucasus nation's drive to gain EU membership, diplomats ...
Main news of June 4 4 Jun 2007 20:25, RIA Novosti... MTS, a law enforcement spokesman said * Georgia was given the right to subscribe to ... move signaling tremendous progress in the South Caucasus nation's drive to gain EU membership, diplomats ...
Analysis: West should not rise to Putin's bluster 4 Jun 2007 19:17, Times Online... To the south US military backing for Georgia has infuriated Moscow, which has imposed a ... has imposed a blockade on the vulnerable Caucasus republic. Compounding the problem is the state ...
Georgia allowed to join EU political statements 4 Jun 2007 19:08, RIA Novosti... TBILISI, June 4 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia has been given the right to subscribe ... move signaling tremendous progress in the South Caucasus nation's drive to gain EU membership, diplomats ...
Orange revolution in Russia unlikely 3 Jun 2007 12:31, RIA Novosti... among people in Central Asia and the Caucasus as well. This attitude often translates into ... however, is that in recent years, Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan, three former Soviet republics, have ...
CIS: Is South Caucasus 'Region' An Artificial Construct? 2 Jun 2007 05:49, RFE/RL... CIS: Is South Caucasus 'Region' An Artificial Construct? May 30, ... 30, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia are commonly grouped together under a common ...
U.S. air shield plans can cause Russia to up strategic offensive arms - envoy 1 Jun 2007 20:23, RIA Novosti... official in March that air defense elements could also be deployed in the South Caucasus. Moscow believes it could be Georgia, whose pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili has been on bad terms with Moscow since coming ...
Russia says Litvinenko visited Chechnya to kill for Berezovsky 1 Jun 2007 19:50, Fort Wayne Newspapers... Litvinenko's visits to the Chechen Republic via Georgia. He was there to eliminate evidence of ... Kabardino-Balkaria, a Russian republic in the North Caucasus. Yedelyov said the information was obtained during ...
The CIS and Baltic press on Russia 1 Jun 2007 17:15, RIA Novosti... were times when Russian policy in the Caucasus was beneficial for us on the whole. ... around us... In the next few years, Georgia will become a NATO member. Sooner or ...
In energy sphere Russia has similar approach towards Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia 1 Jun 2007 08:02, PanArmenian Network
Showing posts with label Alexander Litvinenko. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexander Litvinenko. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
Litvinenko's widow branded "liar"
The Kremlin has angrily branded Alexander Litvinenko's widow Marina a "liar" following an interview she has given to Panorama.
More: BBC NEWS UK Litvinenko's widow branded "liar"
BBC Links
Panorama: How to Poison a Spy Monday 22 January 8.30pm-9pm
Obituary: Alexander Litvinenko BBC News on the former spy's passing
Litvinenko poisoning Watch news reports
"You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price" Read the statement Litvinenko made shortly before his death
External Links
Alexander Litvinenko The Guardian's obituary
The Moscow Times News from Russia today
Europe
Litvinenko poisoners may have tried more than once
A documentary broadcast on the BBC on January 22 said the attempt to poison Litvinenko may have been made on October 16 when Litvinenko met two Russian contacts
Tag:
http://technorati.com/posts/tag/Litvinenko
The Kremlin has angrily branded Alexander Litvinenko's widow Marina a "liar" following an interview she has given to Panorama.
More: BBC NEWS UK Litvinenko's widow branded "liar"
BBC Links
Panorama: How to Poison a Spy Monday 22 January 8.30pm-9pm
Obituary: Alexander Litvinenko BBC News on the former spy's passing
Litvinenko poisoning Watch news reports
"You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price" Read the statement Litvinenko made shortly before his death
External Links
Alexander Litvinenko The Guardian's obituary
The Moscow Times News from Russia today
Europe
Litvinenko poisoners may have tried more than once
A documentary broadcast on the BBC on January 22 said the attempt to poison Litvinenko may have been made on October 16 when Litvinenko met two Russian contacts
Tag:
http://technorati.com/posts/tag/Litvinenko
Friday, December 22, 2006
Gefunden bei Ulrich Speck
Russia, Germany and European energy policy Dieter Helm 14 - 12 - 2006
The "special relationship" between Russia and Germany over energy supplies is both a challenge to European Union integration and an invitation to get serious about it, says Dieter Helm.
Energy policy has shot up the European political agenda in the last couple of years, as the realisation has dawned that the decades of cheap energy are over, and that external dependency is not only going up, but is increasingly focused on a worryingly small number of countries - Russia; in the middle east, on the trio of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia; and in the Caspian ex-Soviet countries such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Chechnya (and again Russia and Iran).
None of these has, as yet, developed liberal open markets (or, indeed, full democracies) and, in almost all, raw political power rules energy policy. Getting access to some of these resources is complex, too, requiring pipelines which, in the Russian case, pass through Belarus and Ukraine (and with the new Baltic pipeline will bypass the former Soviet satellites in the Baltic and Poland). In the Caspian case, the problems are even more complex, with a choice of routes between Russia, Iran or via Georgia and Turkey.
For Europe, Russia is the key to energy security. The dash-for-gas as the preferred fuel for electricity generation makes gas, rather than oil, the priority; and gas is cheaper through pipelines than shipped around the world in tankers for LNG. Russia has the pipeline gas that Europe needs.
It is not just that Europe has a growing dependency on Russian gas supplies; but also that Russia has a powerful hand in influencing and controlling some of the major pipeline supply options - in particular, in the Caspian and the Caucasus. The other sources for European gas - Algeria and Libya - can watch the Russian moves and benefit from the higher prices and insecurity that result, and Norway, with its small population and more money than it can possibly spend, can husband its resources and enjoy the price level.
To date Europe has approached this growing dependency in two ways: by trying to persuade Russia to ratify the energy charter, and in particular to sign up to the Transit Protocol, which would open up access to Gazprom's pipes (its dominant gas company); and by pushing on with liberalisation and competition policies within Europe. The former has failed; the latter, though of merit, does little in itself to mitigate the external position. A third option - diversification to non-carbon sources, like nuclear and renewables, has yet to have made serious impact; indeed, Europe is primarily pursuing the gas option.
Europe's response
The failure to come up with a coherent and credible European external policy towards Russia might not matter much if Russia was in any case going down the open market route and developing its democratic institutions in a way that made property rights bankable. But recent events have raised a question mark here, too.
The shooting of a leading journalist (Anna Politkovskaya) in Russia, the poisoning of a former Russian security agent (Alexander Litvinenko) in London, and the suspicious illness of a former Russian prime minister in Dublin (all so far unsolved) have added a sense of public unease, which has encouraged a more fundamental reconsideration of the energy relationship between the European Union and Russia.
This relationship had already come under strain in January 2006 when Gazprom turned down the gas supplies to Ukraine (thereby starkly exposing Europe's dependency on Russian gas), and then again as Russia turned up the heat on Georgia (a vital link in the lines of oil and potentially gas supplies from the Caspian).
Russia may have backed down quickly in the Ukrainian case, and indeed has had good reasons for trying to increase prices, but there can be little doubt that the episode - as with Georgia - has had a marked political impact. But murders with political resonance obviously create nervousness, and what makes them different in the Russian case is the combination of history, economics and energy.
Russia is now, in practical and political terms, a carbon economy: oil and gas dominate its economy, and the rise of President Vladimir Putin has been closely correlated with the oil price rises since 2000. Indeed, Putin himself has written on the role of energy in re-establishing Russia's prestige on the international stage.
Moreover, with the re-nationalisation of natural resources, the monopoly established by Gazprom over gas pipelines, and the incestuous relationship between Gazprom's board and the Putin regime, the core role of energy has been cemented into the fabric of the Russian state.
Being pipeline-dependent, and with the natural outlet for Russian gas being Europe, the Russian approach has been twofold: to build up its relationship with Germany as the pipeline and contracting hub; and to squeeze the alternative supplies from the Caspian, by trying to continue the Soviet strategy of routing its exports via Russia, whilst frustrating alternative (non-Russian) outlets via (for example) Georgia. Whereas early squeezes on (oil) pipelines focused on Chechnya, now there is a more widespread competition for resource access in the Caspian area - from not only Russia and Europe, but also China, Iran and the United States (via Turkey).
The European Union has woken up to the seriousness of the situation, and with the Hampton Court summit in October 2005, followed by the energy green paper in March 2006, a series of sensible measures have been proposed - notably, reinforcing the interconnections within the EU and completing the physical infrastructure, and thereby not only gaining greater efficiency and security of supply internally, but also increasing resilience against external shocks and facilitating mutual assistance between member-states. Implementation, however, is another matter.
But what the EU really wanted was to be the external face in direct negotiations with the Russians. This made sense at three levels: it would give real meaning to the solidarity that former eastern Europeans craved from membership (having experienced energy dependency in the raw during the cold-war era); it would prevent Gazprom engaging in divide-and-rule and hence confront a monopoly producer with real bargaining power; and it would provide a practical way for Europeans to see their commission playing an important role - especially in foreign policy.
The "special relationship" between Russia and Germany over energy supplies is both a challenge to European Union integration and an invitation to get serious about it, says Dieter Helm.
Energy policy has shot up the European political agenda in the last couple of years, as the realisation has dawned that the decades of cheap energy are over, and that external dependency is not only going up, but is increasingly focused on a worryingly small number of countries - Russia; in the middle east, on the trio of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia; and in the Caspian ex-Soviet countries such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Chechnya (and again Russia and Iran).
None of these has, as yet, developed liberal open markets (or, indeed, full democracies) and, in almost all, raw political power rules energy policy. Getting access to some of these resources is complex, too, requiring pipelines which, in the Russian case, pass through Belarus and Ukraine (and with the new Baltic pipeline will bypass the former Soviet satellites in the Baltic and Poland). In the Caspian case, the problems are even more complex, with a choice of routes between Russia, Iran or via Georgia and Turkey.
For Europe, Russia is the key to energy security. The dash-for-gas as the preferred fuel for electricity generation makes gas, rather than oil, the priority; and gas is cheaper through pipelines than shipped around the world in tankers for LNG. Russia has the pipeline gas that Europe needs.
It is not just that Europe has a growing dependency on Russian gas supplies; but also that Russia has a powerful hand in influencing and controlling some of the major pipeline supply options - in particular, in the Caspian and the Caucasus. The other sources for European gas - Algeria and Libya - can watch the Russian moves and benefit from the higher prices and insecurity that result, and Norway, with its small population and more money than it can possibly spend, can husband its resources and enjoy the price level.
To date Europe has approached this growing dependency in two ways: by trying to persuade Russia to ratify the energy charter, and in particular to sign up to the Transit Protocol, which would open up access to Gazprom's pipes (its dominant gas company); and by pushing on with liberalisation and competition policies within Europe. The former has failed; the latter, though of merit, does little in itself to mitigate the external position. A third option - diversification to non-carbon sources, like nuclear and renewables, has yet to have made serious impact; indeed, Europe is primarily pursuing the gas option.
Europe's response
The failure to come up with a coherent and credible European external policy towards Russia might not matter much if Russia was in any case going down the open market route and developing its democratic institutions in a way that made property rights bankable. But recent events have raised a question mark here, too.
The shooting of a leading journalist (Anna Politkovskaya) in Russia, the poisoning of a former Russian security agent (Alexander Litvinenko) in London, and the suspicious illness of a former Russian prime minister in Dublin (all so far unsolved) have added a sense of public unease, which has encouraged a more fundamental reconsideration of the energy relationship between the European Union and Russia.
This relationship had already come under strain in January 2006 when Gazprom turned down the gas supplies to Ukraine (thereby starkly exposing Europe's dependency on Russian gas), and then again as Russia turned up the heat on Georgia (a vital link in the lines of oil and potentially gas supplies from the Caspian).
Russia may have backed down quickly in the Ukrainian case, and indeed has had good reasons for trying to increase prices, but there can be little doubt that the episode - as with Georgia - has had a marked political impact. But murders with political resonance obviously create nervousness, and what makes them different in the Russian case is the combination of history, economics and energy.
Russia is now, in practical and political terms, a carbon economy: oil and gas dominate its economy, and the rise of President Vladimir Putin has been closely correlated with the oil price rises since 2000. Indeed, Putin himself has written on the role of energy in re-establishing Russia's prestige on the international stage.
Moreover, with the re-nationalisation of natural resources, the monopoly established by Gazprom over gas pipelines, and the incestuous relationship between Gazprom's board and the Putin regime, the core role of energy has been cemented into the fabric of the Russian state.
Being pipeline-dependent, and with the natural outlet for Russian gas being Europe, the Russian approach has been twofold: to build up its relationship with Germany as the pipeline and contracting hub; and to squeeze the alternative supplies from the Caspian, by trying to continue the Soviet strategy of routing its exports via Russia, whilst frustrating alternative (non-Russian) outlets via (for example) Georgia. Whereas early squeezes on (oil) pipelines focused on Chechnya, now there is a more widespread competition for resource access in the Caspian area - from not only Russia and Europe, but also China, Iran and the United States (via Turkey).
The European Union has woken up to the seriousness of the situation, and with the Hampton Court summit in October 2005, followed by the energy green paper in March 2006, a series of sensible measures have been proposed - notably, reinforcing the interconnections within the EU and completing the physical infrastructure, and thereby not only gaining greater efficiency and security of supply internally, but also increasing resilience against external shocks and facilitating mutual assistance between member-states. Implementation, however, is another matter.
But what the EU really wanted was to be the external face in direct negotiations with the Russians. This made sense at three levels: it would give real meaning to the solidarity that former eastern Europeans craved from membership (having experienced energy dependency in the raw during the cold-war era); it would prevent Gazprom engaging in divide-and-rule and hence confront a monopoly producer with real bargaining power; and it would provide a practical way for Europeans to see their commission playing an important role - especially in foreign policy.
A special relationship
This European Union approach has, however, been thwarted so far by national governments, some of which have pointedly wanted to keep energy as a national competence. At the heart of this has been the role played by Germany. It has pulled away from a community approach, developing its bilateral relations with Russia to such an extent as to have, in effect, a "special relationship" (though it fiercely resists this description).
Like all such relationships, the form and content is multi-faceted, complex and deep. It has personal as well as formal components. Thus, at one level, the Baltic pipeline, bypassing the eastern European member-states, provides a core physical link, and the Gazprom-Ruhrgas relationship is cemented in shares and contracts. At another level, Gazprom is a public and explicit critic of the commission's plans on ownership unbundling, making Ruhrgas's case for it, and at yet another, key politicians are directly involved.
Former German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, is chairman of the North European Gas Pipeline (NEGP), a project which he approved just before he left office. More personally still, Putin helped the Schröder family adopt Russian orphans. The warmth of that relationship echoes some aspects of that between Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in Britain and the US's "special relationship". Under Schröder's successor, the personal aspects are not on the same level, but nevertheless it is worth noting that the Baltic pipeline will come ashore in Angela Merkel's constituency in northeast Germany.
A two-way street
The German-Russian "special relationship" has economic interest at its core. Gazprom's position is a very rational one: monopoly control of pipelines and therefore resources in Russia; a stable core partner for contracts; and a staging-post into Europe. For Germany, long exposed to energy insecurity, it has a natural dependency, and with the Baltic pipeline, it receives the rents from transporting gas which would otherwise have been shared out with eastern European countries. The decision to route the giant Shtokman field through the Baltic pipeline (rather than via LNG to the US and elsewhere) is a further coup.
For Germany, this eastern perspective has a much longer pedigree, stretching back to the 19th century. In the cold-war years, Ostpolitik, under Willy Brandt and Hans-Dietrich Genscher, was the natural forerunner of today's eastern orientation. The economic opportunities in this "new Europe" are immense, with its cheaper labour and high skills, and investment opportunities in Russian's carbon economy are similarly large-scale. For the export-orientated engineering and technology skills base of Germany, a "special relationship" with Russia is obviously attractive. So, for both sides, this is a national relationship to build upon.
The German "special relationship" is, however, quite a headache for Europe and the commission. It is in the middle of trying to negotiate a new partnership and cooperation agreement (PCA) with Russia (the current one expires in December 2007) and its ambitions on the energy front are not helped by the bilateral arrangements being put in place. Indeed, within Europe, other countries are recognising that they have to try to catch up with Germany and form their own bilateral arrangements with Gazprom and Russia. ENI in Italy is well advanced with swaps, contracts and pipeline deals. Others are likely to follow. Europe is indeed being divided - the risk is that, in energy terms, it might be ruled too.
2007: Germany's twin presidencies
This conflict between national and European approaches towards Russia and Gazprom will come to a head in 2007. Germany then has the twin presidencies of the European Union and the G8. Germany will preside over the commission's liberalisation plans, including possibly the proposal for ownership unbundling of networks within companies such as Ruhrgas, the development of the energy green paper proposals and the EU's post-2007 PCA or other arrangements with Russia.
At the G8, it will also have to broker the US-Russian energy relationships, and in both presidencies it will need to take the climate change agenda forward. Finally, to make matters even more complex, Germany will have to prepare the ground for resolving the EU constitutional issues, which are likely to make any further shift of powers to the commission in areas such as energy even harder to sell.
While all this European and global activity is going on, Germany will at the same time be continuing its own bilateral summits and arrangements with Russia. Thus, 2007 will be a testing year for Germany and the EU. There are wider political ramifications too. In the past, Germany has sought to bury its national interests in the European project. Indeed, that was part of the motivation for the creation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in the first place.
At reunification, François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl strove to permanently anchor an enlarged Germany within Europe, and steps such as monetary union were part of that process. Now there is a further test - whether Germany can lead Europe through its presidency towards a European energy policy, and the foreign-policy elements that accompany it, or whether it will let energy remain a national competence and allow Europe to drift into greater dependency without the necessary safeguards.
The first test will come in January 2007 when the commission tables its energy package. Germany (and France) may want to defend their national champions from ownership unbundling and water down the commission's proposals.
The next test comes with the EU summit in March 2007, and the question of how to build on the 2006 energy green paper. The challenge here will be to focus on the completion of the European networks, and to move regulation towards a more European approach to their development and operation.
Then there is the question of strategic gas storage (which German companies oppose - along with many other large incumbents).
And finally there is the development of mutual support arrangements (which need the physical grid connections to be delivered).
Europe's opportunity
The worrying recent developments have opened up considerable opportunities. Recognition of the reality of Vladimir Putin's Russia, and in particular the rational monopoly strategy that Gazprom is pursuing, should disabuse most of the notion that Russia is about to open up its gas pipes to others. Recognition, too, of what is going on in Georgia and the Caspian, and the implications for southern non-Russian pipeline supplies, should alert Europeans to the importance of European foreign policy.
To meet this series of new challenges, Europe needs more than a set of national responses, however much these might be in individual member-states's narrow interests. That Germany is in the driving seat, both as Gazprom's hub and with the presidencies, provides a timely chance to prepare Europe for its future energy dependency, and to better align its internal energy market reforms with the external challenge. But at stake is much more: if Germany fails to go down the European path, it will be a break with one of the deep political objectives of the EU, and it will show the sceptical voters of Europe that the EU cannot deliver in an area of such vital interest. Energy is where a significant part of the case for greater European integration may be won or lost.
Dieter Helm is a fellow in economics at New College, Oxford. See www.dieterhelm.co.uk for his articles on energy policy
Also by Dieter Helm in openDemocracy:
"GM and the intensification of farming"(11 June 2003)
"Russian gas, Ukraine and Europe's energy security" (20 January 2006)
"Russia's energy policy: political assertiveness or rational economics?" (17 October 2006)
Mehr zu Russland
In Moskau regiert der Geheimdienst. Von Manfred Quiring, Welt
Putin, Garant der Gesetzlosigkeit. Von Richard Herzinger, Welt
Moskauer Technik.Von Kerstin Holm und Michael Hanfeld, FAZ
The fog of the “new cold war”. By Edward Lucas, Economist
Source: http://blog.zeit.de/kosmoblog/
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Alexander Litvinenko: the Poison of Power
Via openDemocracy
By Zygmunt Dzieciolowski 20 - 11 - 2006
A poisoned Russian defector in London is only the latest official enemy to be targeted, reports Zygmunt Dzieciolowski.
Their dream was a poison which would kill a man instantly but which could not be found in a corpse’s blood during the post-mortem examination. For years, the secret poison laboratory of the Soviet-era biologist Grigory M. Mairanovski, founded on the orders of Lavrenti Beria in 1938, researched deadly substances. The moment came when Mairanovski and his team felt that, by deceiving even experienced medical experts, they had achieved their dream.
It happened when German prisoners-of war who had been killed with Mairanovski’s poison were immediately transferred to the Sklifasovskii emergency clinic in the heart of Moscow. The Sklifasovskii medics were unable to find the poison - and concluded that the German POWs had in fact died of natural causes.
The Mairanovski laboratory was closed in 1946 following the replacement of Lavrenti Beria by Vsevolod Merkulov as head of the NKVD. But poisons continued to be used intermittently throughout modern Soviet and post-Soviet history, indicating that the tradition of toxicological assassination was never completely abandoned.
The poisoned body politic
It was some times pursued via proxies. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian writer and journalist with the BBC World Service, died in London in September 1978 after apparently being injected with poison from the tip of an umbrella.
Yuri Shchekochikhin, a Russian journalist (deputy editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta) and member of the Duma (parliament), died on the night of 2-3 June 2003 after returning from a business trip to the city of Ryazan where he had sought to investigate a furniture-store corruption scandal involving high-ranking intelligence officials.
His illness was first described by Moscow doctors as allergy but when he lost his hair, and the skin on his face changed its structure, it became obvious that his body was reacting to a strong, unidentifiable poison. Doctors were unable to save him; he died within a few days.
For a few years, Shchekochikhin’s Novaya Gazeta colleagues tried to discover the real reasons for his death, and sent tissue-samples to London for further investigation. In the event it was not possible to identify the poison which killed Shchekochikhin, though his editor-in-chief Dmitri Muratov has no doubts that this was the cause of death.
Another poisoning attempt affected journalist Anna Politkovskaya (later shot dead by an unknown assassin on 7 October 2006). At the first news of the Beslan school siege in September 2004 she rushed to the airport to seek a seat on flight in the direction of the north Caucasus. In the end she got a ticket for a flight to Rostov-on-Don. Aware of all possible dangers she refused to eat and drink on board. Only at the end of the flight did she request a glass of water. She fainted after the plane landed, and for days doctors struggled to save her. She had been poisoned, perhaps by two secret-service agents who had followed her onto the plane.
The most famous poisoning case involved the Ukrainian opposition leader (now president) Viktor Yushchenko. A few months before the presidential election in 2004 he was hospitalised suffering stomach pains. Soon his face began to change, and a mask of lesions and blisters disfigured the Ukrainian politician’s previously youthful looks. Numerous examinations held by laboratories in the Britain, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany confirmed that Yushchenko was poisoned purposely by a poisonous substance called dioxine.
In April 2002 the Russian secret services used a poison in order to liquidate one of the most dangerous Chechen warlords, Omar ibn-Khattab. He died within five minutes after opening a letter said to be written by his mother. It was delivered by a Chechen fighter recruited by the Russian secret services as their agent.
Events in Moscow’s Dubrovka theatre in October 2002, when 900 spectators were taken hostage by Chechen fighters, further demonstrate how much the Russian secret services are fond of employing poison-gas substances. After getting inside the building, members of the special forces used an unidentified narcotic gas to subdue the terrorists. But it affected hostages too. 129 of them died, all but two from the adverse effects of the gas.
The toxic trail
The case of Alexander Litvinenko, the former secret service (FSB) agent now in a London hospital after being poisoned in a restaurant with a dose of the metal thallium, is no different. Before and after his flight to London, the colonel had made enemies in the Russian government and intelligence services.
At first he accused his bosses of organising an attempt to kill émigré businessman Boris Berezovsky, himself a strong critic of president Putin. Litvinenko’s book on the mysterious explosions of apartment blocks in Moscow and other cities in September 1999 which killed more than 300 people angered his enemies even more. Litvinenko had no doubts that the explosions - which helped propel Russia into its second Chechen war, and were followed a year later by the election of Vladimir Putin to the presidency - were organised by the FSB to convince public opinion that war was essential to curb Chechen terrorism.
The Kremlin’s allies in Moscow deny that the FSB could be involved in an attempt to poison Litvinenko with thalium. In their view the incident helps Boris Berezovsky, who will now use it in his propaganda campaign against the Kremlin. Gennadi Gudkov, a Duma member and retired KGB colonel, acidly praised Berezovsky’s talent as a director of theatrical spectaculars.
But Kremlin critics such as Sergei Kovalev, or former Yukos executive and KGB general Alexei Kondaurov, do not exclude another possibility: that former colleagues of Alexander Litvinenko had themselves had enough of his criticism and activities.
As with so many elements in the melancholy trail of Russian deaths in the last sixteen years, the truth will be hard to find. But the method, the symptoms, and the mysterious circumstances in which a poison was used in London all indicate that the tradition of Dr. Mairanovski’s laboratory has not been forgotten.
This article by Zygmunt Dzieciolowski was originally published on openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons Licence.
If you enjoyed this article, visit openDemocracy.net for more.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-institutions_government/poison_power_4111.jsp
Zygmunt Dzieciolowski is a Polish journalist and writer who has reported on Russia for leading German, Swiss and Polish newspapers since 1989. He is the author of Planet Russia, published in Poland in 2005.
Also by Zygmunt Dzieciolowski on openDemocracy:
"Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shadow" (3 April 2006)
"Russia: racism on the rise" (26 April 2006)
"Russia's corruption dance" (15 June 2006)
"Kinoeye: Russia's reviving film industry" (11 July 2006)
"Russia and the middle east: post-Soviet flux" (14 August 2006)
"Roman Abramovich's Chukotka project" (14 September 2006)
"In Russia, death solves all problems" (3 November 2006)
reuters.com: Ex-Russian Spy May Have Ingested Radioactive Poison
another blogarticles:
* http://thejackriceshow.blogspot.com/2006/11/former-kgb-spy-dies.html
* http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/death-of-alexander-litvinenko_25.html
Deutschsprachige Presseschau zum Fall Litwinenko :
Neue Ermittlungen nach Litwinenko-Vergiftung Salzburger Nachrichten - Die britische Polizei hat ihre Ermittlungen zur Aufklärung des tödlichen Giftanschlags auf den russischen Ex-Spion Alexander Litwinenko am Samstag ausgeweitet ...
Briten weiten Giftanschlag-Ermittlung aus WirtschaftsWoche
London bittet Moskau um Hilfe NZZ Online
«Zeichen für staatlich gefördertes Attentat»: Ermittler ... Netzeitung
"Fall Litwinenko": Vergiftung mit radioaktivem Material Die Presse.com - Der russische Ex-Spion Alexander Litwinenko war nach Erkenntnissen der britischen Behörden vor rund drei Wochen mit der radioaktiven Substanz Polonium 210 ...
London nach Litwinenko-Vergiftung alarmiert Kleine Zeitung
Litwinenko wurde mit radioaktiver Substanz vergiftet Deutsche Welle
Litwinenko-Tod: Kritik an der EU Tages-Anzeiger Online - Menschenrechtler haben der Europäischen Union vorgeworfen, im Fall des vergifteten russischen Ex-Agenten Alexander Litwinenko demokratische Standards zu ...
Giftspuren an drei Orten Nachrichten.ch
Russische Medien sehen in Tod von Litwinenko ein Komplott derStandard.at - Moskau - Russische Medien und Abgeordnete sehen in dem Tod des Exspions Alexander Litvinenko in London eine gegen Russland gerichtete Verschwörung. ...
RUSSISCHE MEDIEN Giftmord als Komplott des Westens gewertet Spiegel Online
Verdächtigen-Ping-Pong Stern
Litwinenko-Tod beschäftigt Geheimdienstspitzen Berliner Umschau
Toter Ex-Spion Litwinenko sueddeutsche.de
Cohn-Bendit:"System Putin ist terroristisch" derStandard.at - Litwinenko habe dem "Regime Putin" bereits seit sechs Jahren "allen erdenklichen Schaden" zugefügt, jedoch keine wirkliche "Bedrohung" dargestellt, fügte das ...
"So blöd kann Putin doch nicht sein" Spiegel Online
London bittet Moskau um Hilfe Tagesspiegel - Großbritannien hat Russland um Hilfe bei der Aufklärung des Todes des ehemaligen russischen Agenten Alexander Litwinenko gebeten. ...
Die Akte Litwinenko 0815-Info - 24. Nov. 2006... mit der CIA gefeuert wurde, namens Mario Scaramella(2) bei dem seit 2000 in London lebenden Buchautoren und ex-FSB-Agenten Alexander Litwinenko und sagt
Ein Agenten-Thriller wie aus dem Kalten Krieg Die Welt
Moskau bezeichnet Ex-Spion als "unbedeutenden Wicht" Die Welt - 22. Nov. 2006
Die Qual der Wahl Deutschlandfunk - vor 23 Stunden gefundenToxikologie. - Jüngsten Berichten zufolge ist Alexander Litwinenko an einer Polonium-Vergiftung gestorben. Der Exagent des russischen ...
"Nicht schön, aber nützlich" tagesschau.de - 24. Nov. 2006Während die offiziellen Stimmen aus Moskau eine Verbindung mit dem Tod des Ex-Agenten Litwinenko entschieden zurückweisen, vermutet die Bevölkerung vielfach ...
Angeblich vergifteter Ex-Spion Financial Times Deutschland - 23. Nov. 2006... Litwinenko war am Donnerstag verstorben. ... Im Umfeld des Ex-Spions wird vermutet, dass Russland einen Giftanschlag auf Litwinenko verübt hat. ...
Giftige Grüße aus Moskau Die Zeit
Russische Geschichte der Vergiftungen derStandard.at - 24. Nov. 2006 Wie schon beim ukrainischen Präsidenten Viktor Juschtschenko fällt auch bei Litwinenko der Verdacht auf den russischen beziehungsweise eine Kooperation des ...
Fall Litwinenko: Die Giftwaffe in der Politik Leipziger Volkszeitung - 23. Nov. 2006 Hamburg. Unliebsame politische Gegner sind wiederholt mit Gift aus dem Weg geräumt worden. Oft waren Geheimdienste in die Attentate verwickelt. ...
Energie: Putin verstärkt Druck auf den Westen Merkur Online - Jose Manuel Barroso am Freitag auf dem von der polnischen Blockadepolitik und dem mysteriösen Tod des Kremlkritikers Litwinenko überschatteten europäisch ...
Russland grollt - und verbilligt Flüge Die Presse.com - Doch nicht nur der Streit ums Fleisch belastete die Stimmung, sondern auch der Tod des russischen Spions Alexander Litwinenko (siehe Seite 7). Während ...
Geheimlabor entwickelt Gifte für spurlose Morde Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger - Moskau - Der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin hat jede Verbindung mit dem Tod des russischen Ex-Agenten Alexander Litwinenko in London zurückgewiesen. ...
Via openDemocracy
By Zygmunt Dzieciolowski 20 - 11 - 2006
A poisoned Russian defector in London is only the latest official enemy to be targeted, reports Zygmunt Dzieciolowski.
Their dream was a poison which would kill a man instantly but which could not be found in a corpse’s blood during the post-mortem examination. For years, the secret poison laboratory of the Soviet-era biologist Grigory M. Mairanovski, founded on the orders of Lavrenti Beria in 1938, researched deadly substances. The moment came when Mairanovski and his team felt that, by deceiving even experienced medical experts, they had achieved their dream.
It happened when German prisoners-of war who had been killed with Mairanovski’s poison were immediately transferred to the Sklifasovskii emergency clinic in the heart of Moscow. The Sklifasovskii medics were unable to find the poison - and concluded that the German POWs had in fact died of natural causes.
The Mairanovski laboratory was closed in 1946 following the replacement of Lavrenti Beria by Vsevolod Merkulov as head of the NKVD. But poisons continued to be used intermittently throughout modern Soviet and post-Soviet history, indicating that the tradition of toxicological assassination was never completely abandoned.
The poisoned body politic
It was some times pursued via proxies. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian writer and journalist with the BBC World Service, died in London in September 1978 after apparently being injected with poison from the tip of an umbrella.
Yuri Shchekochikhin, a Russian journalist (deputy editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta) and member of the Duma (parliament), died on the night of 2-3 June 2003 after returning from a business trip to the city of Ryazan where he had sought to investigate a furniture-store corruption scandal involving high-ranking intelligence officials.
His illness was first described by Moscow doctors as allergy but when he lost his hair, and the skin on his face changed its structure, it became obvious that his body was reacting to a strong, unidentifiable poison. Doctors were unable to save him; he died within a few days.
For a few years, Shchekochikhin’s Novaya Gazeta colleagues tried to discover the real reasons for his death, and sent tissue-samples to London for further investigation. In the event it was not possible to identify the poison which killed Shchekochikhin, though his editor-in-chief Dmitri Muratov has no doubts that this was the cause of death.
Another poisoning attempt affected journalist Anna Politkovskaya (later shot dead by an unknown assassin on 7 October 2006). At the first news of the Beslan school siege in September 2004 she rushed to the airport to seek a seat on flight in the direction of the north Caucasus. In the end she got a ticket for a flight to Rostov-on-Don. Aware of all possible dangers she refused to eat and drink on board. Only at the end of the flight did she request a glass of water. She fainted after the plane landed, and for days doctors struggled to save her. She had been poisoned, perhaps by two secret-service agents who had followed her onto the plane.
The most famous poisoning case involved the Ukrainian opposition leader (now president) Viktor Yushchenko. A few months before the presidential election in 2004 he was hospitalised suffering stomach pains. Soon his face began to change, and a mask of lesions and blisters disfigured the Ukrainian politician’s previously youthful looks. Numerous examinations held by laboratories in the Britain, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany confirmed that Yushchenko was poisoned purposely by a poisonous substance called dioxine.
In April 2002 the Russian secret services used a poison in order to liquidate one of the most dangerous Chechen warlords, Omar ibn-Khattab. He died within five minutes after opening a letter said to be written by his mother. It was delivered by a Chechen fighter recruited by the Russian secret services as their agent.
Events in Moscow’s Dubrovka theatre in October 2002, when 900 spectators were taken hostage by Chechen fighters, further demonstrate how much the Russian secret services are fond of employing poison-gas substances. After getting inside the building, members of the special forces used an unidentified narcotic gas to subdue the terrorists. But it affected hostages too. 129 of them died, all but two from the adverse effects of the gas.
The toxic trail
The case of Alexander Litvinenko, the former secret service (FSB) agent now in a London hospital after being poisoned in a restaurant with a dose of the metal thallium, is no different. Before and after his flight to London, the colonel had made enemies in the Russian government and intelligence services.
At first he accused his bosses of organising an attempt to kill émigré businessman Boris Berezovsky, himself a strong critic of president Putin. Litvinenko’s book on the mysterious explosions of apartment blocks in Moscow and other cities in September 1999 which killed more than 300 people angered his enemies even more. Litvinenko had no doubts that the explosions - which helped propel Russia into its second Chechen war, and were followed a year later by the election of Vladimir Putin to the presidency - were organised by the FSB to convince public opinion that war was essential to curb Chechen terrorism.
The Kremlin’s allies in Moscow deny that the FSB could be involved in an attempt to poison Litvinenko with thalium. In their view the incident helps Boris Berezovsky, who will now use it in his propaganda campaign against the Kremlin. Gennadi Gudkov, a Duma member and retired KGB colonel, acidly praised Berezovsky’s talent as a director of theatrical spectaculars.
But Kremlin critics such as Sergei Kovalev, or former Yukos executive and KGB general Alexei Kondaurov, do not exclude another possibility: that former colleagues of Alexander Litvinenko had themselves had enough of his criticism and activities.
As with so many elements in the melancholy trail of Russian deaths in the last sixteen years, the truth will be hard to find. But the method, the symptoms, and the mysterious circumstances in which a poison was used in London all indicate that the tradition of Dr. Mairanovski’s laboratory has not been forgotten.
This article by Zygmunt Dzieciolowski was originally published on openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons Licence.
If you enjoyed this article, visit openDemocracy.net for more.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-institutions_government/poison_power_4111.jsp
Zygmunt Dzieciolowski is a Polish journalist and writer who has reported on Russia for leading German, Swiss and Polish newspapers since 1989. He is the author of Planet Russia, published in Poland in 2005.
Also by Zygmunt Dzieciolowski on openDemocracy:
"Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shadow" (3 April 2006)
"Russia: racism on the rise" (26 April 2006)
"Russia's corruption dance" (15 June 2006)
"Kinoeye: Russia's reviving film industry" (11 July 2006)
"Russia and the middle east: post-Soviet flux" (14 August 2006)
"Roman Abramovich's Chukotka project" (14 September 2006)
"In Russia, death solves all problems" (3 November 2006)
reuters.com: Ex-Russian Spy May Have Ingested Radioactive Poison
another blogarticles:
* http://thejackriceshow.blogspot.com/2006/11/former-kgb-spy-dies.html
* http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/death-of-alexander-litvinenko_25.html
Deutschsprachige Presseschau zum Fall Litwinenko :
Neue Ermittlungen nach Litwinenko-Vergiftung Salzburger Nachrichten - Die britische Polizei hat ihre Ermittlungen zur Aufklärung des tödlichen Giftanschlags auf den russischen Ex-Spion Alexander Litwinenko am Samstag ausgeweitet ...
Briten weiten Giftanschlag-Ermittlung aus WirtschaftsWoche
London bittet Moskau um Hilfe NZZ Online
«Zeichen für staatlich gefördertes Attentat»: Ermittler ... Netzeitung
"Fall Litwinenko": Vergiftung mit radioaktivem Material Die Presse.com - Der russische Ex-Spion Alexander Litwinenko war nach Erkenntnissen der britischen Behörden vor rund drei Wochen mit der radioaktiven Substanz Polonium 210 ...
London nach Litwinenko-Vergiftung alarmiert Kleine Zeitung
Litwinenko wurde mit radioaktiver Substanz vergiftet Deutsche Welle
Litwinenko-Tod: Kritik an der EU Tages-Anzeiger Online - Menschenrechtler haben der Europäischen Union vorgeworfen, im Fall des vergifteten russischen Ex-Agenten Alexander Litwinenko demokratische Standards zu ...
Giftspuren an drei Orten Nachrichten.ch
Russische Medien sehen in Tod von Litwinenko ein Komplott derStandard.at - Moskau - Russische Medien und Abgeordnete sehen in dem Tod des Exspions Alexander Litvinenko in London eine gegen Russland gerichtete Verschwörung. ...
RUSSISCHE MEDIEN Giftmord als Komplott des Westens gewertet Spiegel Online
Verdächtigen-Ping-Pong Stern
Litwinenko-Tod beschäftigt Geheimdienstspitzen Berliner Umschau
Toter Ex-Spion Litwinenko sueddeutsche.de
Cohn-Bendit:"System Putin ist terroristisch" derStandard.at - Litwinenko habe dem "Regime Putin" bereits seit sechs Jahren "allen erdenklichen Schaden" zugefügt, jedoch keine wirkliche "Bedrohung" dargestellt, fügte das ...
"So blöd kann Putin doch nicht sein" Spiegel Online
London bittet Moskau um Hilfe Tagesspiegel - Großbritannien hat Russland um Hilfe bei der Aufklärung des Todes des ehemaligen russischen Agenten Alexander Litwinenko gebeten. ...
Die Akte Litwinenko 0815-Info - 24. Nov. 2006... mit der CIA gefeuert wurde, namens Mario Scaramella(2) bei dem seit 2000 in London lebenden Buchautoren und ex-FSB-Agenten Alexander Litwinenko und sagt
Ein Agenten-Thriller wie aus dem Kalten Krieg Die Welt
Moskau bezeichnet Ex-Spion als "unbedeutenden Wicht" Die Welt - 22. Nov. 2006
Die Qual der Wahl Deutschlandfunk - vor 23 Stunden gefundenToxikologie. - Jüngsten Berichten zufolge ist Alexander Litwinenko an einer Polonium-Vergiftung gestorben. Der Exagent des russischen ...
"Nicht schön, aber nützlich" tagesschau.de - 24. Nov. 2006Während die offiziellen Stimmen aus Moskau eine Verbindung mit dem Tod des Ex-Agenten Litwinenko entschieden zurückweisen, vermutet die Bevölkerung vielfach ...
Angeblich vergifteter Ex-Spion Financial Times Deutschland - 23. Nov. 2006... Litwinenko war am Donnerstag verstorben. ... Im Umfeld des Ex-Spions wird vermutet, dass Russland einen Giftanschlag auf Litwinenko verübt hat. ...
Giftige Grüße aus Moskau Die Zeit
Russische Geschichte der Vergiftungen derStandard.at - 24. Nov. 2006 Wie schon beim ukrainischen Präsidenten Viktor Juschtschenko fällt auch bei Litwinenko der Verdacht auf den russischen beziehungsweise eine Kooperation des ...
Fall Litwinenko: Die Giftwaffe in der Politik Leipziger Volkszeitung - 23. Nov. 2006 Hamburg. Unliebsame politische Gegner sind wiederholt mit Gift aus dem Weg geräumt worden. Oft waren Geheimdienste in die Attentate verwickelt. ...
Energie: Putin verstärkt Druck auf den Westen Merkur Online - Jose Manuel Barroso am Freitag auf dem von der polnischen Blockadepolitik und dem mysteriösen Tod des Kremlkritikers Litwinenko überschatteten europäisch ...
Russland grollt - und verbilligt Flüge Die Presse.com - Doch nicht nur der Streit ums Fleisch belastete die Stimmung, sondern auch der Tod des russischen Spions Alexander Litwinenko (siehe Seite 7). Während ...
Geheimlabor entwickelt Gifte für spurlose Morde Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger - Moskau - Der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin hat jede Verbindung mit dem Tod des russischen Ex-Agenten Alexander Litwinenko in London zurückgewiesen. ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
