Russian State Security Agencies

Before it was disbanded in 1991, the KGB was a massive organization, employing over half a million uniformed officers as well as a network of millions of informers. A highly disciplined and militarized service, it controlled almost every aspect of life in the USSR and adhered with utmost loyalty to the Communist Party line, even across state borders. It was ultimately divided into several new organizations, including the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Protection Service (FSO) and the body considered the true KGB successor, the Federal Security Service (FSB).

To better understand the various State Security Agencies, I have tried to provide additional information and resource links below (listed alphabetically by acronym).

FSB The Federal Security Service (FSB - Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, previously known as Federal Counterintelligence Service - FSK) is the most powerful of the successors to the KGB. In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, the FSB slowly took on the responsibilities of a number of agencies. Most recently, it absorbed FAPSI, the Russian equivalent of the United States' National Security Agency. The FSB's power is rooted in the influence of President Vladimir Putin, a former director, and a vast network of former officers that has permeated all sectors of Russian government and society.


FSO The Federal Protective Service (FSO - Federal'naya Sluzhba Okhrani) is one of the successors of the KGB, assuming functions of the Ninth Directorate which guarded the Kremlin and key offices of the CPSU. The FSO, headquartered in Block 14 in the Kremlin, supervises top-level government communications, operates and protects underground command centers, maintains the special underground train system that connects key government facilities in the Moscow area, and protects other strategic facilities, and executive aircraft and special trains.


SVR The Foreign Intelligence Service (Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki) is the name of Russia's primary external intelligence agency. The SVR performs intelligence gathering operations abroad and also enters into anti-terrorist cooperation and intelligence-sharing arrangements with foreign intelligence agencies. The SVR also conducts counterproliferation operations, environmental intelligence gathering, and special counternarcotics intelligence operations. The service also provides analysis and dissemination of intelligence to Russian Federation policymakers. Unlike the FSB, which is an investigative-enforcement organization, the SVR is an intelligence organization and does not operate as a law enforcement agency.

Other Russian State Security Agencies can be researched at FAS Intelligence Resource Program, including the FAPSI, FBS, GRU, MBR, MVD, PSB, and SOUD.

Department V (also known as Vympel)

(Вымпел meaning Pennant, also known as Vega Group or Spetsgruppa V) is a Russian counter-terrorism unit. In 1981, the Soviet Politburo secretly approved a proposal, from then KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov and Gen. Yuri Drozdov, for Vympel within the First Chief Directorate of the KGB as a dedicated OSNAZ unit. The unit specialized in deep penetration, sabotage, universal direct and covert action, embassy protection and spy cell activation in case of war. It was a covert unit in Russian intelligence whose officers are trained to "liquidate" people abroad.

This special unit of the Russian secret service could have provided the polonium that killed the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Sources in Russia have suggested that a secret unit called Department V could have obtained the radioactive substance that has left a trail across Europe.

Polonium 210 is only produced in a small number of state-controlled facilities and Department V, also known as Vympel, is charged with guarding Russia's nuclear installations. The "Spetsnaz", or special forces unit was responsible for assassination operations abroad in the Soviet era and is supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Like Dignity and Honour, the group of former FSB officers accused of targeting Mr Litvinenko, Vympel also has a veterans group, headed by Sergei Shestov a former commander in the unit. The group says: "Love of homeland and civil consciousness and fulfilment of the high military duty are eternal truths which have always been followed by the members of Vympel."

It also runs a private security enterprise called "Lubyanka", named after the former headquarters of the KGB, which offers the "protection of property of proprietors during its transportation" and complex services for foreign businessmen who visit Russia." "Whether Department V actually exists is a real question," Mark Galeotti, a Russian expert at Keele University, said yesterday. "But I believe that Vympel is back." "It used to be a hit squad and maybe it is still used as such but its main function is as a rapid reaction group to counter nuclear theft and terrorism. As such it has some training in various isotopes, although they would not be true specialists, and runs operations at nuclear facilities, which may well have given members the opportunity to access polonium in a more subtle way than sending an order from Moscow."

The Russian HIT LIST of Five

Evgueni Limarev is credited with e-mailing the Russian HIT LIST to Mario Scaramella. There are five potential targets identified in the e-mail. They are (listed alphabetically): Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Bukovsky, Paolo Guzzanti, Alexander Litvinenko, and Mario Scaramella. Here are their photographs and links to biographical resources.


Boris Berezovsky Born-1946, Moscow Russia,
A mathematician and computer programmer by training, in 1989, Berezovsky left the world of academia to start a business, becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the period, his interests including auto industry, oil, aluminium, and mass media. During the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, Berezovsky was one of the so-called oligarchs who gained access to the president, becoming a close member of Yeltsin’s inner-circle, unofficially known as the “Family”. He used this influence to acquire stakes in state companies including the car giant AutoVAZ, state airline Aeroflot, and several oil properties that he organized into Sibneft.

After, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in 2000 that Russia would no longer tolerate ’’shady groups’’ that divert money abroad, establish their own ’’dubious’’ security services, and block the development of a liberal market economy, Berezovsky voiced his plans to create an opposition party led by regional governors and other influential figures threatened by Putin’s drive for power. Berezovsky left Russia at the end of 2000 and he received political asylum in the United Kingdom.

Vladimir Bukovsky Born-1942 is a former Soviet dissident, author and human rights activist. He was one of the first to expose the use of psychiatric imprisonment against political prisoners in the USSR. He spent a total of twelve years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and in psikhushkas, forced-treatment psychiatric hospitals used by the regime as special prisons. The fate of Bukovsky and other political prisoners in the USSR, repeatedly brought to attention by Western human rights groups and diplomats, was a cause of embarrassment and irritation for the Soviet authorities. In December of 1976, while imprisoned, Bukovsky was exchanged for former Chilean Communist leader Luis Corvalan. Since then, Bukovsky has lived in the UK, focusing on neurophysiology and writing.

Paolo Guzzanti Born-1940, Rome. Member of the Italian Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee. The president of the Mitrokhin commission (a parliamentary comission which was entrusted of investigations about the role of KGB in Italy), Guzzanti, is a Forza Italia senator and as a journalist, has long held a senior position at Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family, which has been running the KGB-Italian left story for months. In April 2006, Italian papers published what were reported to be transcripts of conversations between Guzzanti and Mario Scaramella. The transcripts allegedly show the two men discussing how Scaramella is to acquire strong enough evidence from Moscow to label Romano Prodi, then the leader of Italy's centre-left opposition, now Prime Minister, a tool of the Russians. Other members of the Prodi government were also said to have been targeted, including the head of the Green Party, Alfonso Scanio, who is now environment minister.

Alexander Litvinenko Born 1962, Voronezh Russia, was a lieutenant-colonel in the FSB (Russia’s Security Service) and later a Russian dissident and writer, who was murdered in London by becoming a victim of lethal polonium-210 radiation poisoning. After working for the KGB and its successor, the FSB, Litvinenko publicly accused his superiors of ordering the assassination of Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky. He alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before the 9/11 attacks. He wrote Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he said that it was FSB agents and not Chechen rebels who carried out the apartment block bombings. He was arrested, released then fled to the UK, where he was granted political asylum and citizenship. Litvinenko is thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead last month in Moscow, and said recently that he was investigating her murder. Litvinenko died November 21, 2006.


Mario Scaramella Born-1970, Naples Italy, is an Italian lawyer, academic, and security consultant. He served as an investigator and adviser to the controversial Mitrokhin Cimmission set up by Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party in order to investigate supposed links between Berlusconi's political rivals, including his rival for the premiership (now Prime Minister) Romano Prodi and the KGB. Scaramella is alleged to have collaborated with the president of the commission Paolo Guzzanti in garnering false evidence to link Prodi with the KGB.
The Italian self-styled security consultant says he flew to London last month to warn Alexander Litvinenko that both their lives were at risk. At a meeting at a West End sushi restaurant he claimed he gave the Russian a document which named five people on a hit list allegedly drawn up by Russian intelligence officers. Curiously, Scaramella reportedly was meeting with Litvinenko at a London sushi restaurant to tell the former KGB agent that his name was on an assassination list that he'd uncovered. Revelations that Scaramella, a shadowy nuclear security expert and well-known information peddler, tested positive Friday for the same radioactive toxin that killed Litvinenko, gives the evolving spy mystery yet another weird twist: The Italian Connection.

Photographs 3 of 4

Here are photographs of names that keep coming up in the investigation of Alexander Litvinenko's murder, or victims of previous poisonings and suspicious deaths. To read the biographies of these individuals, click on their names.

Vladimir Bukovsky Born-1942, Russia. A notable former Soviet dissident, author and a human rights activist. He was one of the first to expose the use of psychiatric imprisonment against political prisoners in the USSR. He spent a total of twelve years in Soviet prisons, labor camps and in psikhushkas, forced-treatment psychiatric hospitals used by the regime as special prisons. Together with a fellow inmate in Vladimir prison, psychiatrist Semyon Gluzman, Bukovsky coauthored A Manual on Psychiatry for Dissidents , to help other dissidents to fight the authorities' abuses. In his autobiographical novel And the Wind Returns, Bukovsky describes how he was brought to Switzerland handcuffed.

Stephen Curtis Stephen Curtis, the British lawyer who was made managing director of Yukos Oil’s parent company, Group Menatep, last November, became an informant of Britain’s National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) just days before dying in a helicopter accident (March 2005). Curtis, a close confidant of jailed former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, drew up structures for Yukos’s offshore oil trading business back in 1999 that helped the company avoid taxes. Russia’s Tax Ministry has presented Yukos with a bill of $3.5 billion for unpaid taxes in 2000 and resulting fines.

Of particular interest to investigators, following his death, were a small group of Russians who, in the 1990s, had begun to seek his services. They were among the first of a new breed of rich Russian businessmen to emerge from the sell-off of state assets under President Boris Yeltsin. In return for supporting his election campaign, they'd been given places at the front of the queue when the country's major assets were privatized. In a highly controversial deal known as "loans for shares", and a series of rigged auctions, they acquired assets worth billions of dollars at a fraction of the real price. Embracing capitalism with fervor, 22 of these businessmen quickly rose to the top, owning between them 40% of the Russian economy. The term "Russian Oligarch" was born.

Paolo Guzzanti Born-1940, Rome, he is an Italian journalist and politician. He was previously a member of the Italian Socialist Party. As a journalist he worked for L'Avanti!, La Repubblica and La Stampa. He also hosted the first season of TV show Chi l'ha visto?. Currently he is vice-director of Silvio Berlusconi's Il Giornale and editorialist for Panorama, also owned by Berlusconi. He was elected to the Italian Parliament for Forza Italia. From 2002 to 2006 he was president of the Mitrokhin Commission, a parliamentary comission which was entrusted of investigations about the role of KGB in Italy.

Lecha Ismailov A rebel field commander, Ismailov died in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison after drinking tea with two FSB officers (2002). The symptoms were similar to those that Alexander Litvinko experienced, following Polonium-210 poisoning: Ismailov’s attorney described them as he couldn’t speak or move, his skin peeled off in pieces from his head and hands, hair falling out, organ failure and internal hemorrhaging. Ismailov (the Beard) had worked closely with the warlord Ruslan (Hamzat) Gelayev. Both hailed from the same town of Komsomolskoye in southwestern Chechnya. As the leader of the "Shaykh Mansur Special Task-Force Regiment," Islamov was captured in 2000 following the siege of Grozny and was sentenced to nine years in prison for seizing hostages and organizing an armed group.

Suleyman Kerimov Born-1966,Derbent, Dagestan, Russia. He is a member of the State Duma of Russia. He is a member of the LDPR, and is Deputy Chairman of the State Duma's Committee on Sports. He has a degree in construction from the Dagestan Polytechnic Institute and in economics from Dagestan State University. Kerimov is a billionaire and known as "Russia's Richest Civil Servant", listed # 72 on Forbes' World's Richest People List. Kerimov is thought to control Nafta-Moskva, a successor to the Soviet oil trader Soyuzneftexport and SWIRU Holding AG of Luzern, and has built up his wealth investing in Gazprom and Sberbank. Nafta-Moskva owns 5% of Sberbank and 20% of BINBank. He is an enigmatic figure who claims to eschew publicity but advertizes a lavish lifestyle in the media.

Mujahedeen Khattab Born-1969, Saudi Arabia. Differing reports on how Khattab was assassinated (2000) include: dying five minutes after he opened a booby trapped letter containing a poisonous agent, given to him by a trusted aid, and secondly, that he was given poisoned food in a private party. Khattab was reported to be the most important Mujahedeen commander killed since Russian troops launched their latest campaign against the Chechen freedom struggle two and a half years ago. Khattab was an amateur movie producer, with the rather morbid habit of videotaping all of his battles.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Born -1963, Russia. He is a Russian businessman, a former Komsomol activist who became one of Russia's most powerful tycoons. He was later convicted for fraud and tax evasion and received a 9-year sentence. In 2004, it was reported that Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia, and was the 16th wealthiest man in the world, although much of his wealth evaporated following the collapse in the value of his holding in the Russian petroleum company YUKOS. At the time of his arrest, he was considered the most powerful of the Russian business oligarchs. In 1996, he was named Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of YUKOS Oil Company. One of his first strategic decisions, the acquisition of the Eastern Oil Company, immediately made YUKOS, Russia's second-largest oil producer. He has been recognized as a leader in the transformation of Russian business practices and is committed to the principles of good corporate governance and full transparency." Khodorkovsky Press Center

Evgueni Limarev Born-1965, admits to links with Russian intelligence agencies but denies reports that he was ever a listed KGB officer. He fled Russia in 1999 after falling out with influential politicians and businessmen in Moscow, living most recently in Cluses, France. He has denied being the sole source of the information which Mario Scaramella used as a pretext to arrange the lunch, November 1, 2006 with Alexander Litvinenko in London. “I was just one of many sources for that information,” he said. "Scaramella used me to distract attention from himself and because he was scared."


Leonid Nevzlin Born 1960, Russia. He was considered Khodorkovsky's number two man, Nevzlin took care of security issues and the group's political relations. Elected senator in the Federation Council of Russia in 2001. In 1988, as a 28-year-old computer programmer in Moscow, Nevzlin answered a newspaper advertisement for a job and met Mikhail Khodorkovsky; became a founding shareholder of what later become Group Menatep, the banking, trading and oil empire. With a warrant out for his arrest, he fled to Israel to escape the fate of his fellow Yukos shareholders, Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, both of whom are in a Moscow prison awaiting trial on theft and fraud charges. He was granted citizenship in 2003. Now leading the campaign to get his partners released and funding the political opposition to President Vladimir Putin.


Roman Tsepov Born-1962, Russia, general director of the Baltik-Eskort private security firm, was poisoned (September 2004) with a large dose of medicine used for treating leukemia patients, a heavy metal that is among experimental chemicals, whose access is severely restricted. The murder resembled that of Ivan Kivelidi, the influential businessman apparently poisoned to death along with his secretary in 1995. Tsepov’s sphere of influence was very wide, from pharmaceuticals and protection service to ports, tourism, shipping, insurance, and even the mass media. Tsepov kept in touch with many siloviki, from Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev to the head of the presidential security service, Vladimir Zolotov. He was in well with deputy presidential administration chief Igor Sechin and even Vladimir Putin himself. Tsepov actively used contacts (in the UBOP, the anti-organized crime directorate) to resolve business issues and also carry out delicate errands for a number of very highly placed persons. Tsepov used his connections to lobby for the appointments of Interior Ministry and FSB (Federal Security Service) officers. It was precisely because of this that one of his nicknames within certain circles was the Producer.

Does This Help?

[Click on the chart to enlarge]














Telegraph.co.uk, December 2, 2006

Evgueni Limarev - Who is this guy?

Evgueni Limarev, Evgueni Kholodor, Evgeny, Evgeni, Andrey, Yevgeny and Evgueni Limanov are all names or aliases used by this individual, born-1965. His website (www.rusglobus.net) refers you to his Press Agent:
Agency "Misiukevicius & Partners"
A.Smetonos 6-6, LT-01115, Vilnius, Lithuania
Mobile tel. +370656 62229
land phone: +370 5 2430665
r.sabas@mirp.lt
limarev_evgueni@hotmail.com



The memo handed to Alexander Litvinenko was written by Evgueni Limarev, whose father served with the KGB in the 1970s, who now lives in Switzerland, specializing in researching such groups. He sent this list to the Italian security expert Mario Scaramella, who showed it to Litvinenko in a Piccadilly sushi bar on the day that he fell ill.

Mr Limarev, who used to work with Russia’s Federal Security Bureau (FSB) before he fled Moscow, did not expect to be identified publicly. “Now my name has been linked to this case I really fear something might happen to me,” he said last week. He claims that sources in Russia who passed him the hit list are being hunted by the FSB and have had to go to ground after armed agents searched their homes and other locations.

Evgeny Limarev, who told the former KGB officer that he was on a death list, just hours before he was poisoned, was reported to have fled his home in the French Alps, where he was under police protection. Before his disappearance, he said that British detectives wanted to question him about the origins of a hit list that included Litvinenko’s name among the targets being hunted by a team of former Russian agents working across Europe.
Limarev also responded to claims that he sent information to Scaramella which caused him to set up the sushi lunch. He is said to have warned that both Scaramella and Litvinenko were at risk of being killed by renegade members of Spetsnaz, the Russian equivalent of the SAS, because of their criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Spetsnaz, an elite unit attached to the intelligence section of the army, specializes in close quarters hand-to-hand combat.

Limarev also claimed that he was the victim of a suspicious robbery in Rome on the day that news of Litvinenko's condition broke. While he was in Italy, a bag containing Limarev's personal papers and house keys were stolen. Three days later the keys were used to try to gain entry to his safe house 500 miles away, but the locks had already been changed. He said: 'What worries me is that very few people knew I was in Italy and knew where I was staying. They tried to enter my house very professionally. The tyres on my car had also been let down.'

Limarev says he first encountered Litvinenko in 2001, contacting him to ask him to speak to Berezovsky about possible business deals. Litvinenko then introduced Limarev to Scaramella, who invited him to help with his work on an Italian Parliamentary investigation, the Mitrokhin Commissiion, into KGB activity in the country during the Cold War. Limarev says he stopped working for Scaramella in 2005 after he became concerned about the Commission's activities. Limarev, whose father was a senior KGB officer, says he retains good sources in the Russian intelligence services.

Limarev, 41, who admits to links with Russian intelligence agencies but denies reports that he was ever a listed KGB officer, fled Russia seven years ago after falling out with influential politicians and businessmen in Moscow. Chain-smoking nervously, he denied being the sole source of the information which Scaramella used as a pretext to arrange the lunch. 'I was just one of many sources for that information,' he said. 'Scaramella used me to distract attention from himself and because he was scared.'

Current Headlines 2 of 12

There is a great deal of intrigue, speculation and facts in the media. In this post, I will try to provide a characterization of this work, research and opinion.

Was he on the verge of unmasking a master spy at the heart of the Italian government? Jason Lewis, Daily Mail, writes about “a mysterious agent”, code named Uchitel, “The Teacher” and that Litvinenko was assassinated to prevent him from exposing the agent’s identity.

The oligarch fighting for life, his stunning companion...and the Curse of Yukos Ian Gallagher and Ian Sparks, Daily Mail, describe yet another scenario, linking Alexander Litvinenko to Stephen Curtis, Suleiman Kerimov, Leonid Nevzlin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the “Curse of Yukos”.

Mysterious Personage in Litvinenko's Case The AXIS Information and Analysis (AIA) article provides a comprehensive background on Andrey Lugovoy.

Photographs 2 of 4

Here are photographs of names that keep coming up in the investigation of Alexander Litvinenko's murder, or victims of previous poisonings and suspicious deaths. To read the biographies of these individuals, click on their names.

Artyom Borovik A prominent Russian journalist and media magnate who specialized in investigative exposes of the Kremlin was killed in a suspicious air crash at Moscow airport (March 10, 2000). Borovik was one of the loudest critics in Moscow of President Vladimir Putin, and of Mr. Putin's war against Chechnya. Borovik's publications included Sovershenno Sekretno (Top Secret) and Versiya, which "concentrated on juicy revelations of the venality and the corruption among Russia's rich and powerful. He also helped CBS "60 Minutes" produce a segment on Russia's strategic missile force.


Oleg Gordiewski Born-1938, Moscow. Former KGB colonel and Colonel of the KGB and KGB Resident-designate and Bureau chief in London. He was a double agent for M16 since 1966, when he was persuaded to work for the Danish intelligence service soon after the KGB posted him to Copenhagen posing as a press attaché. In 1985 he became highest ranking officer to defect, having served as head of the KGB in London in charge of the USSR's whole spy operation in Britain.





Vladimir Kostov Born Bulgaria. He survived an assassination attempt, was shot in the back with a poison bullet, near the Arc the Triumph in Paris, after fleeing Bulgaria in 1977. Bulgarian Dictator Schiwkov blamed dissident Georgi Markov for assisting Kostov escape Bulgaria. Markov was later stabbed in London, with an umbrella, which injected the same kind of poisoned bullet in his leg, from which he died. It was alleged that the Bulgarian secret police, in collaboration with KGB Officer Oleg Kalugin, carried out the assassination.



Andrei Kozlov Born-1965, The top deputy chairman of Russia's Central Bank was murdered (September 2006), execution style, after being shot by unidentified assailants in an attack that officials suggested was prompted by his efforts to clean up the country's banking system. Kozlov's most conspicuous achievement had been the introduction of a deposit insurance program designed to restore faith in the banking system after widespread defaults in 1998. Kozlov had been responsible for banking supervision, and had overseen an ambitious program to reduce criminality and money laundering in the banking system.


Andrei Lugovoi
Former KGB agent and bodyguard for Boris Berezovsky. Met Alexander Litvinenko on November 1, 2006 at Millennium Hotel-London. Lugovi, who had once been arrested for assisting Berezovsky ally Nikolai Glushkov in an alleged escape attempt from police custody, "where he was being held on charges of embezzlement (to the tune of $250 million) and massive fraud,". Lugovi was later released; Glushkov was tried and convicted on lesser charges of financial chicanery related to the case and served three years in prison. Lugovi meanwhile has apparently become a successful private detective in Moscow. In recent days, Berezovsky has begun hinting heavily that his former friend Lugovi has been restored to the good graces of the Russian security organs and thus might have had a hand in Litvinenko's poisoning. How else to explain his booming business? "Anyone close to me can normally not even find work in Moscow, let alone have a successful business," Berezovsky told the Moscow Time.

Salman Raduev Born 1967-Russia, was a rogue Chechen warlord. During the First Chechen War, he became a field commander for the separatist Chechen forces. Raduyev was one of the best known of the rebel field commanders. In March 1996 Raduyev was shot in the head. Raduyev was wounded again in a car bomb assination attempt in 1998. This earned him the nickname of Titanic because his shattered skull was reconstructed with steel plates. Because of his injury, Raduyev did not take an active role in the Second Chechen war. He was captured in March 2000 by the Russian special operations unit Vympel. Raduyev was tried on multiple murder charges and, in 2001, was sentenced to life in prison. Raduyev died in prison from internal bleeding. The circumstances surrounding the 2002 death of Raduyev are not clear, poisoning was suspected.


Yuri Shchekochikhin Born-1950 Kirovabad Russia, Journalist Novaya Gazeta. Shchekochikhin made his name writing about and campaigning against the influence of organized crime and corruption in the Russian government. He died suddenly in 2003 after a mysterious illness later linked to thallium poisoning, in what was believed by many to be a politically-motivated assassination.


Yuri Shvets A Major in the KGB during the years 1980-1990, working for 2-years in the US at their Washington Rezidentura. Shvets recruited two key sources of political intelligence whom he referred to as Sputnitsa and Socrates. Sputnitsa has been identified as the late New Statesman journalist Claudia Wright. Socrates, a former Carter administration aide with strong ties to Greece was not identified by Shvets. However, in his book "Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer", Victor Cherkashin names "Socrates" as John Helmer. After publishing a book describing his exploits and ultimate falling out with the KGB, Shvets was banned from foreign travel. In 1994, he secretly made his way to America where he now resides. Shvets is now a key witness in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. Shvets said that he and Litvinenko had compiled a report investigating the activities of senior Kremlin officials on behalf of a British company looking to invest "dozens of millions of dollars" in a project in Russia. Shvets said the dossier was so incriminating about one senior Kremlin official, who was not named. It was likely that Litvinenko was murdered in revenge. He alleged that Litvinenko had shown the dossier to another business associate, Andrei Lugovoi, who had worked for the KGB and later the FSB. Shvets alleged that Lugovoi was still an FSB informant and he had passed the dossier to members of the spy service.


Vyacheslav Volodya Sokolenko Born-1964, Sokolenko, a business partner of Andrei Lugovi, met Alexander Litvinenko on November 1, 2006 at Millennium Hotel-London. London police have been looking for a suspect in the Litvinenko murder investigation, named Vladimir, described as a figure that was "tall" and "taciturn". Sokolenko matches the description. He heads an association of security agencies.

Galina Starovoitova Born-1946, Chelyabinsk, Russia. On November 20, 1998, Starovoitova and her aide, Ruslan Linkov, were assassinated in the staircase of her apartment building. Starovoitova was an impassioned human rights activist, feminist and democratic progressive in the Russian parliament. She was co-chair of the Democratic Russia party.


Julia Svetlichnaja Svetlichnaja met Alexander Litvinenko earlier this year, and received more than 100 emails from him. In a series of interviews, she reveals that the former Russian secret agent had documents from the FSB, the Russian agency formerly known as the KGB. He had asked Svetlichnaja, who is based in London, to enter into a business deal with him and 'make money'. The FBI has been dragged into the investigation of Alexander Litvinenko's death after details emerged that he had planned to make tens of thousands of pounds blackmailing senior Russian spies and business figures.


Colonel Velentin Velichko Leads the group accused of planning the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, and the Italian investigator Mario Scaramella. A memo, handed to Litvinenko by Scaramella at the Itsu restaurant in Piccadilly on the day he was poisoned, alleged that both men were being targeted. The memo claimed that agents of the Russian security services and an organization called, Dignity and Honour, run by a Colonel Velentin Velichko, were trying to kill the "enemy No 1 of Russia" and his "companion in arms", exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Litvinenko. The memo handed to Litvinenko was written by Evgueni Limarev, whose father served with the KGB in the 1970s and who now lives in Switzerland, specialising in researching such groups. The memo adds: "Velichko's agents are presumably involved in the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya in October 2006, as well as in elaboration of other similar assassination plans, by order and on behalf of FSB/SVR."



Zelimkhan Yandarbiev Former Chechen President died from injuries he sustained in an explosion in Qatar (February 2004). Yandarbiev, Chechnya's acting president in 1996 and 1997, was wanted by Russia on charges of leading an armed revolt. He lived in exile in Qatar. The United Nations last year put Yandarbiev on a list of people with alleged links to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.


Sergei Yushenkov Born-1950, he was a liberal Russian politician well known for his uncompromising struggle for democracy, rapid free market economic reforms, and higher human rights standards in Russia. He was assassinated in 2003, just hours after registering his political party to participate in the parliamentary elections. Various theories exist regarding his assassination, including one that Boris Berezovsky suggested to Sergei Yushenkov that an attempt on his life should be faked: to promote Liberal Russia, a party that was little known at that time. Before Golovliov died in August 2002, he might have passed Yushenkov certain compromising materials concerning ranking officials involved in privatization frauds in the Ural area.

Why was Alexander Litvinenko murdered?

The following excerpt is from an interview with Akhmed Zakayev (AZ), December 5, 2006, conducted by Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAZ).

FAZ: Do you see a connection between the murder and the two laws passed by the Duma in July, about the “liquidation” of people opposing the regime?

AZ: Of course. And because of this, the Europeans shouldn’t pretend that this murder wasn’t to be expected. The Duma passed two laws in July, on the eve of the G8 summit in St. Petersburg. The first one allows the government to liquidate “extremists” and “terrorist” abroad. The second one defines people opposing the government and regime critics as extremists.

Photographs 1 of 4

Here are photographs of names that keep coming up in the investigation of Alexander Litvinenko's murder, or victims of previous poisonings and suspicious deaths. To read the biographies of these individuals, click on their names.


Boris Berezovsky Born-Moscow 1946, now living in London. He is known as one of Russia’s first billionaires. In 1966, a Forbes magazine article entitled, Godfather of the Kremlin? portrayed Berezovsky as a mafia boss who had his rivals murdered. He has strongly criticized the current Russian administration. He moved to the UK in 2001, where he was granted political asylum. In 2003 he legally changed his name to Platon Elenin. In recent years he has gone into business with Neil Bush, younger brother to US President George W. Bush. He was a close friend of Alexander Litvinenko.


Yegor Gaidar Born-1956, presently living in Moscow. He was Russia’s Prime Minister (1992) under President Boris Yeltsin. After leaving government in 1994, he became a founding member of the Democratic Choice of Russia party. It later merged into the Union of Rights Forces. In 2003, Gaidar retired from public political activities, and began concentrating on economics. On November 28, 2006, Gaidar was found unconscious in Ireland, where he had been presenting his new book, Lasting time. Russia in the World. In it he criticized the economic policies of Putin’s administration. There have been suspicions of poisoning.


Alex Goldfarb Born-Romania 1947 Goldfarb is the Executive Director of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties-New York City, a non-profit and political action group, founded by former Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky in 2000. According to the website, the mission is to provide financial, legal, informational and logistical resources to secure human rights and civil liberties in Russia. Among its projects include donations to the Andrei Sakharov Foundation. Goldfarb helped Alexander Litvinenko escape to the UK.

Oleg Kalugin Born-1934 Leningrad. He was formerly a KGB agent operating out of the Soviet embassy in Washington. He was promoted to General in 1974 and returned to the KGB headquarters to become head of foreign counterintelligence or K branch of the First Chief Directorate. As the Soviet Union underwent changes under Mikhail Gorbechev, he became more vocal and public in his criticism of the KGB, denouncing Soviet Security Forces as “Stalinistic”. He wrote a book about Cold War espionage entitled The First Directorate: My 32 Years in Intelligence and Espionage Against the West. With the return to power of elements of the KGB, most notably Vladimir Putin, Kalugin was accused of treason. In 2002 he was put on trial, in absentia, in Moscow, and found guilty of spying for the West. He was sentenced to fourteen years in jail, but the United States has refused to extradite him. Kalugin currently works for CI Centre, a counterintelligence consulting and training firm in the Washington, DC area.


Nikolai Khokhlov Born-1922, formerly a KGB officer who defected to the US in 1953. He fought behind enemy lines during WWII, disguised as a Nazi officer. He played a part in the assignation of Wilhelm Kube. He was later sent by the KGB to supervise two other men whose task it was to kill George Okolovich, the chairman of National Alliance of Russian Soldiers. Khokhlov went to Okolovich’s flat in Frankfurt and told him: “George Sergeevich, I have come to you from Moscow. The Central Committee of the Community Party of the Soviet Union has ordered your assassination. The murder is entrusted to my group… I can’t let this murder happen.” In Frankfurt, in 1957, he was treated for radioactive thallium poisoning, a failed attempt to assassinate him by the Thirteenth KGB Department. Today, he lives in San Bernardino, CA.


Dmitri Kovtun A Russian businessman, he has been identified as both, a target for the assassin who killed Alexander Litvinenko, and also as a possible suspect. Prosecutors in Hamburg are investigating him for allegedly illegally handling the radioactive polonium-210, which they believe was smuggled from Russia through Germany into Britain. He did meet with Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel on November 1, 2006. On December 11 it emerged that radioactive traces were found in the passenger seat of a BMW car that Kovtun rode in, on a document that he brought to Hamburg immigration authorities, and at the home of Kovtun's ex-mother-in-law outside Hamburg. Kovtun denies any part in Litvinenko's poisoning. He is reportedly being treated in Moscow for radiation poisoning at a clinic run by the Federal Medico-Biological Agency of Russia, which is sealed off.


Alexander Litvinenko Born 1962, Voronezh Russia, was a lieutenant-colonel in the FSB (Russia’s Security Service) and later a Russian dissident and writer, who was murdered in London by becoming a victim of lethal polonium-210 radiation poisoning. After working for the KGB and its successor, the FSB, Litvinenko publicly accused his superiors of ordering the assassination of Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky. He alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before the 9/11 attacks. He wrote Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he said that it was FSB agents and not Chechen rebels who carried out the apartment block bombings. He was arrested, released then fled to the UK, where he was granted political asylum and citizenship. Litvinenko is thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead last month in Moscow, and said recently that he was investigating her murder. Litvinenko died November 21, 2006.


Georgi Markov Born 1929-Knyazhero, Russia, defected from Bulgaria in 1969. He worked as a broadcaster and journalist for the BBC World Service, Radio Free Europe and the German Deutsche Welle. He criticized the Bulgarian communist regime many times on radio and it is speculated that as a result of this, the Bulgarian government decided to dispose of him, requesting KGB assistance to do so. Agents of the Bulgarian secret police assisted by the KGB succeeded on their third assassination attempt, when Markov was jabbed in the thigh by a man holding an umbrella (aka the Umbrella Murder). He died three days later (1978). At the post mortem, forensic pathologists discovered a spherical metal pellet the size of a pin-head embedded in Markov's calf. The pellet measured 1.52 mm in diameter and was composed of 90% platinum and 10% iridium. It had two holes with diameters of 0.35mm drilled through it, producing an X-shaped cavity. Further examination by experts indicated that the pellet contained traces of ricin toxin.


Anna Politkovskaya Born Anna Mazepa 1958, New York City to Soviet Ukrainian parents, both of whom served as diplomats to the United Nations. She grew up in Moscow, graduating from Moscow State University, Journalism Dept. Politkovskaya made a name for herself reporting from Chechnya for Russia’s liberal newspaper, Novya Gazeta. She was also a human rights activist, well known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and the Putin administration. She was murdered, execution style, in the elevator of her apartment building October 7, 2006.


Vladimir Satsyuk Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by a massive dose of dioxin or 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD), the most toxic form of dioxin, at the home of Satsyuk (First Deputy of Ukraine Security Forces SBU) on September 5, 2004. Others present included: David Zhvaniya (national deputy of the opposition fraction) and Igor Smeshko (Chief of Ukraine SBU). The menu included at least one creamy dairy product -- a dish of fermented mare's milk called "koumiss." It also included sushi, crayfish, rye bread, watermelon, sweet cakes, wine, cognac, and home-distilled vodka. Following the incident, Satsyuk was fired from the SBU and kicked out from the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament), striping him of his parliamentary status and immunity.


Mario Scaramella Born 1970 Naples, Italy, an Italian lawyer, academic and security consultant. He met with Alexander Litvinenko, on November 1, 2006 at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly Circus and was himself diagnosed with the dangerous radioactive substance in his blood. He states that he was recruited several years ago by the CIA to trace relationships between South American narco-traffickers and Russian spy agencies. He is now under investigation for arms trafficking. The Italians have a term for people like Scaramella that has no exact equivalent in English: millantatore di credito—someone who claims to know a lot more and to have done a lot more than he really does.

Igor Smeshko Previously a military attaché in D.C. in the early 1990’s when Ukraine first became independent, told then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, “…that when Ukraine became free of Russia he wanted to show his friendship for the United States," and that helping provide information on Iraq would give him that opportunity. Subsequently, Chairman of Committee on Military and Technical Cooperation Export Control Policy at Council on National Security and Defense (CNSD). He was promoted to Chairman of Security Service of Ukraine, September 4, 2003. Smeshko was present when Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by a massive dose of dioxin or 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD), at the home of Vladimir Satsyuk (First Deputy of Ukraine Security Forces SBU) on September 5, 2004.


Glenmore Trenear-Harvey He pursued a career in marketing and advertising, first with General Foods in the United Kingdom then, in the United States, with the Maxwell House division of General Foods Corporation; the Ogilvy & Mather in London, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and director of O&M offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Indonesia; the Unilever-owned agency - SSC&B/Lintas in London. He is well know in the intelligence community and regularly provides comment for all mainstream media outlets on the subject, having spent 40 years in British security. He co-founded an agency in 1977, called Trenear-Harvey Bird & Watson.


Mikhail Trepashkin Born 1957, a Moscow attorney and former FSB officer, he was invited by MP Sergei Kovalev to assist in an independent inquiry of the Russian apartment bombings in September 1999, the atrocities that provoked the Second Chechen War and skyrocketed Vladimir Putin to presidency. While preparing for the trial Trepashkin uncovered a trail of a mysterious suspect whose description had disappeared from the files. To his amazement, the man turned out to be one of his former FSB colleagues. He also found a witness who testified that evidence was doctored to lead the investigation away from incriminating the FSB. But Trepashkin never managed to air his findings in court. On October 22, 2003, just a week before the hearings, a gun was allegedly planted into his car, and he ended up behind bars. The gun charge was thrown out by a Moscow appeals court, but Trepashkin was convicted by a closed military court to four years for "disclosing official secrets".

Viktor Yushchenko Born 1954,Ukrain, As a central banker, Yushchenko played an important part in the creation of Ukraine’s's national currency, the hrvvnia, and the establishment of a modern regulating system for commercial banking. In December 1999, Yushchenko was nominated to be the prime minister by Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. He was elected President of Ukrain in the November 2004 election. As a candidate, he represented the Ukranian Opposition Party. The public protests prompted by election fraud played a major role in the election; and the term Orange Revolution, of which Yushchenko is considered a leader, is interchangeably applied to the protests or the election itself. On September 4, 2004 he was poisoned with dioxin or 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-Dioxin (TCDD), at a meeting with Igor Smeshko at Vladimir Satsyuk’s cottage.


Akhmed Zakayev Born 1956, he was arrested in Britain (2002) on a Russian extradition warrant accusing him of armed rebellion, murder and kidnapping. In the wake of Moscow theatre crisis in October, when more than 120 hostages died from the effects of the narcotic gas, Zakayev was arrested, accused of involvement with Chechen rebels who took more than 800 people hostage in Moscow. On November 22, 2002 it was announced that he had been granted political asylum in the UK. Previously, Zakayev was involved in negotiations with Russian representatives before and after the September 1999 Russian offensive, the Second Chechen War. While living in London, Zakayev organized the World Chechen Congress.