General News Alexander Litvinenko assassination - "probably on Putin's orders"

I wouldn't be surprised if Putin ordered a hit out on him.

 

I would be surprised if Putin didn't order a hit out on him.

 

The USA murdered Hugo Chavez. I don't see anyone complaining about that.

 

Not a shred of credible evidence exists to indicate that, but I don't see why you really needed to pull that out of nowhere.

Anyway, back to the relevant topic, polonium poisoning was a particularly nasty way to murder Litvinenko. The FSB is obviously never going to be a group of fluffy bunnies, but the murder seems to have been designed with the knowledge it would be a cruel death. Polonium-laced tea doesn't even seem the most effective assassination technique.

It is quite appalling, but it is among the lesser of Putin's crimes. That's quite a sobering thought. Though unlike a murder in the UK, there as of yet exists no independent tribunal to examine what his government has done in Chechnya and Dagestan, Ukraine and the habitual thuggery of the security forces within Russia.

And I'm not surprised the report points out the president's role. Putin has a very tight hold over the actions of his intelligence services; it is after all one of the platforms his career has been built on.

I don't imagine that this will do much, though. It was a conclusion many had informally reached and which is now clear. Russia's threat that the report would sour UK-Russian relations is hardly compelling given that Russia and the UK aren't exactly the most cordial partners. The Kremlin's response that the report was a joke isn't even surprising at this point; I don't think the Kremlin has taken its obligations or international reputation very seriously for quite some years.

 

What's particularly fucked up about the Polonium thing is that it would have been almost impossible to detect the radiation unless they were specifically looking for it. The particles wouldn't have penetrated the skin.