Current Headlines 8 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.

Another dead Putin body Anna Akhmatova, in her blog atLargely, reports on the assassination of Maksim Kurochkin on March 27. She says that Kurochkin may have been considering revealing what he knew about the workings of the Russian Club and any dirty tricks used during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election in return for his freedom. One unsolved mystery that derives from the campaign is determining who is responsible for poisoning candidate Viktor Yushchenko.


Spy Murder Shakes Russian Émigrés Flooding Britain With Cash, Stephanie Baker-Said in Bloomberg reports on the wave of Russian wealth, and Russian intrigue, that is washing over a metropolis that some call "Londongrad". The London influx, which began after the Soviet Union collapsed, represents the third great wave of Russian émigrés in the past century. Anti-communist White Russians fled to London and Paris after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. In the Brezhnev-era '70s, tens of thousands of Russian Jews left for Israel. This is an excellent background piece.

Enemy of the state, Oksana Chelysheva, Guardian Unlimited, writes about imprisoned Mikhail Trepashkin. He was one of a group of FSB officers who, in a 1998 press conference, announced that they had been instructed to carry out a series of assassinations, but had refused to follow orders they regarded as criminal. Alexander Litvinenko was also among them. Trepashkin resigned from the FSB in 1998, stayed in Russia and became a lawyer. He took part in the independent commission investigating the 1999 explosions in apartment buildings in Moscow and other cities, representing the Moscow victims in court.

Russian prosecutors arrive in London to discuss Litvinenko deathThe International Herald Tribune reports that a delegation of Russian prosecutors, headed by Alexander Zvyagintsev, a deputy Russian prosecutor general, arrived in London, Monday, March 26, to pursue investigation of the Litvinenko murder.

Ex-KGB spy on hunger strike in U.K., demands defector pension The Russia News & Information Agency NOVOSTI reports that Viktor Makarov, former Russian KGB spy, has gone on a hunger strike in Britain, demanding a decent defector's pension from the government for passing secrets to British intelligence during the Cold War.

Girls in radiation tests after spy assassination The Harborough Today reports on two students that are being tested for Polonium-210, after they stayed in the same hotel room, the night after it was used by the people suspected of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, last October. Traces of Polonium-210 were subsequently found in the room.

Friend of poisoned ex-FSB officer accuses Moscow of exploiting his wife in a media campaign Axis Information and Analysis is reporting that Alexander Goldfarb accused Moscow on Thursday of exploiting the dead man's ex-wife in a KGB-style campaign to blacken his name.

Polonium poisoning claim investigated by Irwin Mitchell This press release references the Polonium Victims Support Group, the Health & Safety Executives report and attorneys Conrad Murray and Sallie Booth, representing victims.

Russian's account further clouds a poisoning mystery Steven L Myers and Alan Cowell, International Herald Tribune report that Dmitri Kovtun's version of events, outlined in his most extensive and detailed interview, illustrates the starkly divergent view of the Litvinenko affair as seen from Moscow. It also suggests that sorting out the truth may ultimately be impossible, given the complex, secretive web of associations that bind Russia to its willing and unwilling exiles in London. Kovtun maintains that they (British police) have it backward, maintaining that Oct. 16 was the day that Litvinenko exposed him to the poison, polonium 210. "I am far from thinking that something was premeditated," Kovtun said. "I think things that were not premeditated were happening."

Polonium killers poisoned me too UK's Daily Express includes an exclusive interview by Lucy Johnson, with Steve Atkins, a guest at the Millennium Hotel, who unwittingly drank from the same cup laced with radioactive Polonium 210 which killed the 43-year-old former KGB agent, in the Pine Bar.