Darkness, darkness

This past Thursday night in London, Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko died in his hospital bed, apparently due to radioactive poisoning caused by a fatal dose of polonium. For those unaware of polonium or Mr. Litvinenko, this is a story that may not gain traction, but it should.

Polonium is an exceedingly rare element in nature, typically found in uranium ore at measures of less than 100 micrograms per metric ton. That’s pretty rare. Further, the isotope identified in connection with Mr. Litvinenko’s death, polonium 210, is not naturally occurring; it is made in nuclear reactors, and while it has a few industrial applications, none of those is as a food additive. Apparently, Mr. Litvinenko ingested the fatal dose whilst dining or having tea. Clearly, this was an assassination; folks don’t just wind up with polonium in their stomachs as a natural course of events.

The spotlight has fallen on the Kremlin and the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoi Federatsii (FSB), which is what the KGB is calling itself these days. Why Mr. Litvinenko and why assassination?

I suppose no one, other than those responsible, knows for sure the details behind the assassination. Upon learning of Mr. Litvinenko’s death, the Kremlin issued its obligatory denial of culpability, for even if it did order the killing, it’s poor form to trumpet the fact. Mr. Litvinenko was an ex-KGB and ex-FSB agent who specialized in organized crime syndicates. He fell out of favor in Russia in 1998 for publicizing his notion that the government was trying to kill Boris Berezovsky, a billionaire Russian ‘oligarch’ and erstwhile political ally of the Kremlin. He was exonerated eventually, but further ran afoul of the wrong people in Russia and was eventually, like Berezovsky, compelled to leave Russia for fear of his life. He became a nationalized British citizen just last month.

It’s clear why the Kremlin would want Litvinenko dead; he had a chronic, incurable inability to keep his mouth shut, going so far as to implicate the Russian government in the Moscow apartment-block bombings in 1999 that helped to elect Vladimir Putin and, by extension, stoke the Second Chechen War, which is still ongoing. In the West, it has been long conjectured that elements of the Russian establishment—such as they are—might have been involved in the bombings, and Litvinenko supplied the refrain to the song we all wanted to hear.

I have no opinion to share regarding the bombings in 1999 or the subsequent war in Chechnya. Further, it’s difficult to know how reliable Litvinenko was as a commentator on Russian affairs. Granted, like Putin, he was a silovik, a member of Russia’s security apparatus, and therefore had far more opportunity to witness malfeasance firsthand, but his allegations carry with it the faint odor of the conspiracy theorist. The problem with conspiracy theorists is not that they are 100% wrong, but that they are often only 50% right, and in Litvinenko’s high-stakes game, being half wrong is too much by half. Add to that the general misery and wretchedness that is Russia, and it becomes nearly impossible to assess his charges. It is indeed possible that elements of the Russian security forces murdered their own people in 1999, but getting from that premise to Mr. Putin is difficult…not impossible, just difficult.

The web of Mr. Litvinenko’s allegations extend far beyond miserable Russia. Earlier this year, Mr. Litvinenko alleged that Romano Prodi, the current Prime Minister of Italy, was in the pay of the KGB and had been for many, many years. This would be sensational on its own merits, as Mr. Prodi is one of the few Italian politicians widely respected outside of Italy, but the news hit the stands, as it were, a mere two months before the Italian general elections, elections which would see Prodi narrowly oust Silvio Berlusconi, a right-wing Italian politician known for sleaze and electoral mischief.

Litvinenko’s timing in that regard couldn’t have been worse, for the cynic in us all cannot put away the notion that the revelation was expressly designed to bolster the electoral strength of Berlusconi, who, despite being the most powerful man in Italy, was experiencing a backlash for supporting George Bush’s war against Iraq. Even Italians, political masochists they may be, have limits.

Was Litvinenko shilling for Berlusconi? Was (is?) Prodi a KGB operative? Was Litvinenko merely snookered by the Italian right, thanks in part to his hatred for Putin and his former silovik comrades? As with his apartment-block bombing allegations, there is no way to tell. And certainly, it becomes clear when reviewing Litvinenko’s dossier that the list of folks who cheered his demise extend far beyond the Kremlin and FSB.

The truth of the matter is that Russia is so fracked up not even a first-rate conspiracy theorist—at least, by Western standards—could do the place justice. Assassination is par for the course. The number of people who were associated with Litvinenko after his departure from Russia and who were subsequently murdered is simply staggering. In fact, the day Litvinenko was poisoned, he was attempting to investigate the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was gunned down outside her apartment in October. Litvinenko met with Mario Scaramella, an Italian academic who claimed to have information on Politkovskaya’s murder. After passing along the information, Scaramella has reportedly gone into hiding, and given the number of Litvinenko associates who have wound up murdered, perhaps that’s not such a bad idea.

As if all of that depravity isn’t enough to make one’s head spin, there is one more element here to consider. Litvinenko revealed before dying that he had converted to Islam and wished to be considered a šahīd, a term that is, in some contexts, equivalent to martyr. This wrinkle to the story of Alexander Litvinenko leads one to consider the extra motivations he might have had to view Russia’s excursion into Chechnya as something more than bringing a breakaway republic to heel.

Mr. Litvinenko’s courage throughout his ordeals is, of course, admirable. As a example of political dissent, he will be fondly remembered in the West. However, the substance of that dissent is a little more complicated matter. The arc of Litvinenko’s various allegations touch upon many execrable nooks and crannies of Russian society, many of them pre-dating the current government. Whether Vladimir Putin is merely Al Capone or a Bizzaroland version of Allen Dulles is an open question, but to take sides in any of the various Russian entanglements is to take up with vipers.

Yet the West still pours billions of investment dollars into this snake pit, and the energy security of Western Europe in particular is yoked more closely to Russia with each passing year. Many investors have had the good sense to quit the place, but there are notable exceptions, like Royal Dutch Shell, that lack the gift of common sense.

Mr. Putin, despite his notable failings, has managed to turn large oil and gas revenues into a modicum of stability, but one gets the sense, amid so much depravity and decadence, that the extra revenue has merely staved off an inevitable breakdown of civility. As bad as Putin may be, I fear what comes next.