Category Archives: Lugovoi

A suspected murderer, an ex-KGB turned oligarch, and a “dissident” liberal are all part of what will prove to be a mayoral election of the year.  The three aren’t the only candidates.  Of course, every official Russian political party has thrown their hat into the race.  The aforementioned Lugovoi will run on the LDPR ticket, Anatoly Pakhomov represents United Russia, Yuri Dzaganiya for the KPRF, and recently announced Just Russia candidate Viktor Kurpitko.  Other possible candidates include a possible run by former Bolshoi ballerina Anastasia Volochkova and the head of Sochi’s arm wrestling federation Stanislav Koretsky (whether the latter will take in repeated viewings of Sly Stallone’s Over the Top for inspiration is unknown). The prize is Sochi the Black Sea coastal resort town that will host the 2014 Winter Games. Or rather the real prize is the $12.5 billion in allocated government funds to make Sochi an Olympic Winter ..read more

The recent flurry in the comments section over the polonium poisoning of Aleksandr Litvinenko has inspired me to revisit the issue. When I last left the case, it was reveled that Litvinenko was on retainer with MI6. Andrei Lugovoi, Britain’s chief suspect in the crime, was listed as a Duma candidate on the LDPR ticket. Now Deputy Lugovoi’s goal was to get the immunity that comes with the seat. Lugovoi didn’t need it. The Russian Constitution prohibits extradition, and the Russians weren’t looking like their they were going to fold anyway.

Nevertheless, Lugovoi was clearly looking for a little extra krysha in case some behind the scenes deal was hammered out. Zhirinovskii’s LDPR was a good pick. The case is the kinda thing the flamboyant Zhirik loves, and that is despite the fact the LDPR (and all major Russian political parties) are known to sell their Duma seats to the highest ..read more

Andrei Lugovoi has a trump card: becoming a Duma MP. If Zhirinovsky’s LDPR polls over the 7 percent threshold, which it is expected to do, Lugovoi will gain a seat in Russia’s legislature. Does a legislative seat worry ol’Andrei? What will he do for his constituency? These questions are only secondary when it comes to the seat’s real prize: immunity.

Like many countries, Russia’s elected politicians get immunity from prosecution. And if there’s anyone looking to exploit this legal loophole, Vladimir Zhirinovsky is their man. According to Alexander Kolesnichenko of Russia Profile, these days a LDPR seat runs about $3 million. This is threefold increase from the 1995 election when Zhiri was peddling them for $1 million. Of course, the flamboyant LDPR leader of denies selling Duma seats for the highest bidder. “We never sold anything. We don’t call anyone to join ..read more

So there you have it. Sounds like Andrei Lugovoi was right after all. The London Daily Mail revealed today that Alexandr Litvinenko was indeed a paid MI6 agent. Says the Mail:

Alexander Litvinenko was receiving a retainer of around £2,000 a month from the British security services at the time he was murdered.

The disclosure, by diplomatic and intelligence sources, is the latest twist in the Litvinenko affair, which has plunged relations between London and Moscow to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Sources also say that Litvinenko was recruited by Sir John Scarlett. Scarlett now heads the Crown’s secret service. Before that he was stationed in Moscow. It’s also said that Litvinenko was working for MI6 at the time of his murder.

Litvinenko’s wife Marina denies that her husband ever worked for MI6. But why would she know? I’ve seen enough Hollywood spy ..read more

With all the hoopla around the Anna Politkovskaya murder case, we’ve forgotten to check in with good ol’Andrei Lugovoi to see how he’s doing. Whether valid or not the Politikovskaya murder is often linked with the Litvinenko murder with the following terms–dissident, “fierce Kremlin critic,” Berezovsky, Chechnya, KGB/FSB, and, of course, Putin.

Unlike the Politkovskaya case, however, the Litvinenko case remains stuck in a bureaucratic-diplomatic-legal quagmire. The Russian government has repeated refused allowing Lugovoi to be extradited to Britain. And so far the Russian authorities have been unsatisfied with what the British have provided by way of proof of Lugovoi’s involvement. “We have not received any evidence from London of Lugovoi’s guilt, and those documents we have are full of blank spaces and contradictions,” Alexander Bastrykin, the head of the committee investigating the Litvinenko affair at the Russian Prosecutors Office, told Rossiiskaya gazeta. The UK ..read more

I promise to get on to other topics but with all the drama, which I am an avid sucker for, I feel compelled to continue. I am the moth to the flame.

It appears to be Berezovsky-fest in the Western press. A Google News search reveals hundreds of articles on the alleged assassination plot against BAB. Unfortunately, there few concrete concrete details. RIA Novosti is reporting that British police lacked enough evidence to arrest the would be killer. According to an article published in the Independent, “One reason why the man was not charged was because he was not armed,” the paper said. “Although intelligence had led the security agencies to believe that a plot was being organized against Mr Berezovsky, there was not enough presentable evidence to put before a court, according to security sources.” The man police detained is said to be in ..read more