#25 - JRL 2006-267 - JRL Home
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2006
From: Gerhard Mangott <Gerhard.Mangott@uibk.ac.at>
Subject: THE LITVINENKO MURDER

Univ. Prof. Dr. Gerhard Mangott
Department of Political Science
University of Innsbruck
THE LITVINENKO MURDER

Basically there are three main explanations for the brazen killing of A. Litvinenko.

The first one relates this crime to President Putin personally. This is the least likely explanation, as the murder seriously tarnishes the image of Putin; the anti-Putin hysteria in the West is already utterly stong. Putin does not obtain any relevant gain by this murder, it complicates his most important current aims: ratification of Russian WTO accession by the US congress and initiation of a new legal relationship with the EU. Besides, the murder of a second-rank security agent would maybe have made sense in 2003, when he publicly accused Russian FSB units (even Putin himself) of having bombed its own people for the sake of proliferating a pretext for the military onslaught on Chechnya. Now, given Litvinenkos limited relevance, his murder is totally unreasonable.

The second more likely explanation is that a rogue unit of the Russian domestic security service FSB is responsible for the killing. Former colleagues of Litvinenko could have taken revenge for his defection and/or wanted to kill him because he may have obtained compromising material on the FSB regading the 1999 apartment bombings and/or the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. Another motive could be domestic considerations, as various factions of the FSB have different intentions regarding the Russian election cycle in 2007 and 2008. This may well be related to the issue of the Putin succession in 2008. Circles around crown prince D. Medvedev could well be trying to discredit security services linked to his main rival for the Russian Presidency in 2008 - Defence minister S.Ivanov. These people aim to force Putin - with his reputation utterly tarnished - to reign in on the security services and weaken them decisively.

Another goal of a rogue FSB unit could be the radical destabilization of Russia from within. This unit might well have contacts to a camp within the Presidential Administration. The ultimate goal of this group was to create a situation forcing Putin to declare a state of emergency, which could lay the foundations for an extension of Putin’s presidency, the suspension of presidential elections or the constitutional changes required for a third consecutive term for Putin. Anyway, the more Putin’s reputation abroad is damaged the more he might be inclined to promote constitutional change to remain in office, since he does no longer need to take world opinion into account.

The third explanation, no less likely than the second one, is that Litvinenko’s patron Boris Berezovsky may have ordered his killing. Berezovsky’s principal aim is to harm Putin’s image; he has done so since being forced into exile in 2000. Berezovsky may even have access to Polonium, as he still maintains excellent relaions with the security service of the Russian General staff GRU. Berezovsky may have thus even murdered one of his associates, in order to wreck Putin’s reputation.