Putin administration's critic poisoned

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../npoison19.xml

This hearkens back to the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in an elevator, but who had also claimed she personally had been poisoned by agents of Putin in 2004.

In fact, the article claims that Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB agent, was investigating Politkovskaya's death when he was poisoned. This is also reminiscent of the poisoning of another Russian journalist in 1978, presumably by the government.

I wonder more and more now how much Russia can manage to keep under wraps, or if they're trusting the U.S. relations with North Korea and the middle east to keep the spotlight.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Skexis

I wonder more and more now how much Russia can manage to keep under wraps, or if they're trusting the U.S. relations with North Korea and the middle east to keep the spotlight.

Considering that Russia was able to flatten Grozny with nary an ill effect, I'd wager that they can get away with quite a bit.

However, even if the U.S. wasn't tied down with the Middle East and North Korea, why would the suspicious deaths of critics of the Russian government be worth the U.S. government's attention? And even if it was, what could we do about it? Russia isn't quite as disorganized as it was when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the U.S. government's failure to realize this and adjust the mindset and strategy with which they've dealt with Russia accordingly is probably one of bigger mistakes they've made.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I didn't mean to imply that the U.S. should be doing something, just that one of the purportedly 1st world countries is killing off their detractors systematically, and it doesn't seem to be getting much attention outside of Russia.

Presumably every country in the world has something going terribly wrong in it at some time or another, but the ideal which I'm sure we all aspire to--sanctity of the press-- is supposed to ensure that we can find out about it, and do something about it. It's more of an ideological problem to me than a matter of risk vs. reward.

I suppose really what I want is for increased global pressure to be put on Russia so that it makes it harder for them to sustain this organized effort to subdue the truth.

How ya doing, buddy?

I suppose this represents an ideological divide between us, because the sanctity of Russia's press isn't something I feel justifies some kind of confrontation with Russia over. Particularly since Russia has more than enough weapons at its disposal to make such a confrontation painful.

For example, the vast majority of Europe's natural gas is provided by a Russian company, Gazprom. The Russian government controls a large share of Gazprom's stock, and is represented by a majority of Gazprom's board of directors. Presumably, many Europeans could be made to not worry about what President Putin does to dissidents if they don't want to freeze in the winter.

Similarly, Russia has developed considerable influence in Central Asia and the Middle East, both of which are areas of interest to the United States. Any deal with Iran we try to reach with Iran about it's nuclear program would be useless if Russia doesn't agree to go along with it. The U.S. government could be concievably be made to care less about Russian dissidents if the pressure it tries to exert makes Russia less worried about a nuclear Iran.

There's also the problem of China, which is also less than totally free in its press. They, like the Russians, don't want the U.S. to establish any kind of foothold in Central Asia and are less than happy about our commitments in East Asia. It has been so unhappy about it that it effectively allied with Russia against the U.S. in Central Asia.

Which doesn't say anything about the influence they both hold with North Korea, and any agreement we try to reach concerning the North Korean nuclear program.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Corruption is a way of life in Russia. Always has been, probably always will be. No different then it was under the czars or the communists.

That being said I'm not convinced that both the current instances you cited were attempted assassinations by Putin or his cronies. The due date for the ideal time of whacking both this guy and Anna Politkovskaya had long since passed. While I'd have to be blind to ignore the crackdown on dissent going on in Russia right now, neither of these two people could really do anything to hurt Putin.

Anna Politkovskaya was involved in exposing what happened to the Chechen terrorists/insurgents. Guess what happened there? Nothing. Most Russians supported what was done in Chechneya. Putin told the rest of the world to mind it's business. And we did.... mostly. I'm guessing that whatever this KGB defector knew was long since been milked out of him by British intelligence. So there's absolutely no motivation for attempting a hit on either. Being critical of the regime outside the country does not cut it.

So unless it can be proved this guy was holding something important back, this is all just tinfoil hat nonsense. All defectors think they're gonna be murdered. Very few of them are.

The sole motivation of this would be to apply political pressure on the Russians for some reason. My guess on the situation that needs such leverage is the whole economic spat over development/distribution of Russia's natural resources continues. Any one or combination of the examples Styphon listed would do.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Watts

So unless it can be proved this guy was holding something important back, this is all just tinfoil hat nonsense. All defectors think they're gonna be murdered. Very few of them are.

Not that he was holding something back, but the fact that he was investigating her death, and was notable as a defector.

I mean, come on, thallium found in his system? Hair loss? I wouldn't call that food poisoning. (Well, literally, maybe)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Which of course brings to mind the question that if the Russians didn't want him dead, who would?

FELIPE NO

Is that a hypothetical question? (I really don't know.)

How ya doing, buddy?

It's a question question. If journalists really can't hurt Putin, then why would anybody else want them dead? The assertion that the establishment has nothing to fear from investigative journalism, is itself based entirely on conjecture.

Basically I'm saying that Watts is full of crap.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Skexis

I mean, come on, thallium found in his system? Hair loss? I wouldn't call that food poisoning. (Well, literally, maybe)

You misunderstand. I'm saying that -if- he was poisoned it wasn't because of his investigation or criticism of past issues. That's not a clear motivation for murdering a defector, because frankly the limited damage is already done.

Maybe it is something that would be more personally damaging to Putin?

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...07/05/01.shtml

So we have Litvinenko writing personal things about Putin. He probably has evidence of such allegations correct? There you go a bigger and better motivation for an attempted murder. This was back in July though. Which is what motivated the whole "the due date for whacking him is long since past" statement. Truthfully, we'll never know. Everyone is grasping at straws.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It is mostly interesting to me to see the whole thing unfolding, because there's basically no doubt that he was poisoned. You just don't ingest that kind of radioactive material in that amount by accident, and I'm just venturing a guess, but I bet it's not readily available to your average joe on the streets. What remains to be seen now is 1) who did it and/or were they good enough at what they do to cover their tracks, and 2) why did they do it. It seems the most obvious that Putin or someone close to him would be involved because the guy was such an outspoken critic, but it seems like he was still involved in some pretty interesting issues - it would make for a nice cover if it was someone altogether different. Either way, I'm interested to see how it ends up.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Putin was involved. The guy has always seemed kind of shady to me (and this sort of thing seems kind of characteristic of Russian politicians), and apparently there is a law in place in Russia now that could technically allow him to do something like this.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Which of course brings to mind the question that if the Russians didn't want him dead, who would?

The conspiracy theorist would say "The U.S. Government, to then blame the Russians so they can place more pressure on them for oil/weapons/keeping conspiracy X under wraps." In reality, if you want to name a suspect other than the Russian Government, I'd say the Russian Mafia. They are still quite active and powerful. It's concievable that they had something to do with this -- I can imagine a number of scenarios where someone in trouble with the government would make a deal with the Mafia for protection, and now that protection has, well, "been terminated." It would also explain the lag time between his death and the end of most of the political pressure he's been applying.

Watts's link is really interesting though. If there's any more about this, I would like to see it. The Chechen Press doesn't seem like the best source to get an unbiased, journalistic view of Putin (hello, propaganda).

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by ramoth

Watts's link is really interesting though. If there's any more about this, I would like to see it. The Chechen Press doesn't seem like the best source to get an unbiased, journalistic view of Putin (hello, propaganda).

Sadly, that's all I could find of recent note. I'm assuming that because it wasn't on the main site, and I found it via internet cache it was deleted due to libel concerns. Given the tone of the article it's not a huge stretch of the imagination that's the case.

How ya doing, buddy?

This is interesting. The original article in the thread says he was poisoned with Thallium, but apparently now it's Polonium-210, a radioactive poison. There are numerous articles talking about the radioactive nature of his death. Here's one, and you can find a bunch more by Google News searching for Radiation Poisoning.

I saw a picture of Litvinenko, hairless and looking very sick, on the CBS news. They ran a short story about him and the fact that they're now testing a variety of places, including airplanes he was on, for radiation. This seems more like terrorism honestly than a political silencing. If it is the Russian government, they may be trying to get at all of the people.Litvinenko was involved with as well. This is a pretty dangerous and damaging way to kill someone.

What do you guys think?

FELIPE NO

I try to avoid more detailed conversation on this murder because I dont study Russia's history and my knowledge on Soviet during cold war is limited.

I think that Russia doesnt go along with democracy. When putin was elected and he imposed harsh authoritarian policy, I think that he's trying to model china's economy development: we will keep your food as long as you shut up.

What Russia needs now is stability instead of democracy, so despite of the bad human right tracks record and government pressure to press freedom, I think it's understandable. Russia doesn't need democracy yet, it needs to recover its economy first. (though I heard corruption is quite an issue in Russia)

On last note, does anyone check out Russia's newspapers such as RIA? What do they say about the poisoning?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Politkovskaya's book, Vtoraia Chechenskaia, at
http://tapirr.com/polit/politkovskaya.htm
does not correspond in content to the Chicago edition of the same work. For example, the chapter Zheltoe i Chernom ('Yellow On Black') includes in the Chicago edition these lines:

'Zakayev cannot leave tha car. It is highly unadvisable for him to be in a London cafe, as the British authorities are afraid that the FSS will steal him. It's just like in Soviet spy films. That's how bad things have become again. What have we turned into? What has happened to the country that Putin pushed into war, that was then so jolted by the Nord-Ost October tragedy and left so little chance for normal life?'
(Politkovskaya, Vtoraia Chechenskaia, Zheltoe i Chernom)

Vtoraia Chechenskaia was published in 2002.

Jam it back in, in the dark.