Politskovskaya update

Well this is interesting. Moscow News is reporting two men, Chechen, have been arrested for the murder of journalist Anna Politskovskaya. Apparently satellite coverage was used to track down the two. I hope there is real justice for Anna, not a sham.

More Litvinenko

In this story from AP, the Brits are on Alexander Litvinenko death like white on rice. My favorite part fo this story was the suggestion that Litvinenko had done this himself, slipped himself a radioactive cocktail.

This substance, polonium-210, is a highly toxic material that can only be produced in a nuclear reactor thus limiting the places in the world it can be produced. So how does Litvinenko bring it into Britain and hold on to it until just the right time, whatever that may be? I read some blog comments today trying to blame this on the Israeli government, too, which I thought was astounding.

Litvinenko has a history with a Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky. Supposedly Litvinenko, when he was with the FSB, was ordered to kill Berezovsky. Instead, Litvinenko told Berezovsky about his orders and the oligarch fled the country. They had both relocated to London. Putin's buddies in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian alleged legislature, started pointing fingers at Berezovsky right away as the culprit in this sordid mess.

In this little tidbit from Moscow News, the plot thickens even further, with links showing up to the Kremlin takeover of Yukos oil. Berezovsky was one of the owners of Yukos before the Soviet style takeover. The principal owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is now freezing his ass off in a Siberian prison. (Wikipedia on Yukos here.)

So now we have Yukos, Putin, the murders of Anna Politskovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian emigre community in London and the British security forces all involved in a real life spy story.

Too bad real people are dying in this story.

Poisonous Putin

Since the name Vlad the Impaler has been taken, Vladimir Putin is going with Putin the Poisoner.

In further developments from the Anna Politskovskaya murder, a former member of the FSB (the modern KGB), Alexander Litvinenko, has been poisoned in London. According to the WaPo, Litvinenko has been investigating Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow last month. Now Litvenenko has been in a London hospital for two weeks and could die from the rat poison slipped to him during a meal.
Remember Politskovaya said she had been poisoned on her way to Chechnya last year. And here is where the circle gets completed in this Russian web: Litvinenko had written a book saying Putin had authorized the bombings of apartment buildings in Chechnya which started the second Chechen war. Politskovskaya had been covering both wars and had always maintained that Putin was responsible for starting the second Chechen war.

Also there was the case of the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, the current President of Ukraine. Yushcenko, who was the anti-Kremlin candidate in the election, was taken ill during the campaign in what was later diagnosed as poisoning. Yuschenko's face was disfigured from the poisoning and remains scarred today.

In the Tuesday Post, the editorial board takes a well deserved whack at Putin and his buddy Bush not to mention Tony Blair who all happened to be together this weekend, dressed in their finest Vietnamese wardrobes.

We trust that the British authorities will vigorously investigate the attack on Mr. Litvinenko -- who is now a British citizen -- and that Prime Minister Tony Blair will take seriously the possibility that a colleague in the Group of Eight sanctioned a political murder attempt in London.

I guess now I will never get to go to Russia after writing all this online. Oh well, at least I can continue to honor Anna Politskovskaya and share the news. Too bad Putin, you poisoner, I hope you are about to get caught with your hand in the rat poison.