Posts Tagged ‘litvinenko’
Biziness and justice, Russian style: The cost to our society could be far worse than the wealth these men bring
William Browder is head of Hermitage Capital in London’s Golden Square. He is a naturalized British citizen, the grandson, as it happens, of Earl Browder, the head of the US Communist Party in the 1940s. That link did neither him nor his mathematician father no favours in life.
In the last year he has received 11 death threats – a text message quoted the Godfather about history showing that ‘there is no one so powerful they cannot be killed’. The calls were traced back to Russia. They probably did not come from gangsters, but from the senior figures in the Russian police, or more worryingly the FSB secret police. They are the ones who poisoned the late Mr Litvinienko with polonium in the middle of London.
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UK ‘should tell Vladimir Putin he is not welcome at Olympics’
MPs call for Russian prime minister to be told he is not wanted at London games unless Russia improves human rights record.
Britain should tell Vladimir Putin that he is not welcome at the London Olympics unless Russia makes meaningful efforts to improve its human rights record, MPs will say.
In a move likely to infuriate the Kremlin, Labour’s former Europe minister Denis MacShane will make a parliamentary call for the government to make it clear that Putin is not wanted at the games.
Dozens of heads of state are expected to attend the opening ceremony on 27 July. The Queen will preside over the ceremony, with each national team – including Russia – taking part in a parade.
Putin, currently the prime minister, is certain to win Russia’s presidential election in March despite public discontent and huge protests against election fraud last month. He will be back in the Kremlin and on the international stage from May.
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Russia Declares Litvinenko Murder Suspect a Victim
In a new twist of Cold War-style tit-for-tat accusations, Russia asserted Wednesday that Britain’s chief suspect in the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 was himself the target of a murder attempt with the same radioactive substance.
The declaration by Russia’s top investigative body, the Investigative Committee, is likely to deepen the diplomatic chill between Moscow and London, and widen the gulf between Russian and western law enforcement agencies.
Russian investigators have appeared recalcitrant in the Livtinenko case, and the government has refused to extradite the polonium suspect, Andrei Lugovoi, calling it a matter of national sovereignty.
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Cameron, You Dropped the Ball
Dear Prime Minister Cameron,
During your recent visit to Moscow you claimed that you would like to take on the skeptics of the Russian-British relationship. I would like to accept that challenge.
In your speech at Moscow State University on Sept. 12, you outlined two types of skeptics — those who believe Britain is untrustworthy and for whom the relationship is connected to the Soviet past, and those, you said, who believe that Russia should not modernize, innovate and open up.
Taking your second set of skeptics first, I can think of almost no one who believes that Russia should not modernize, innovate or open up. Where did you get that from? You would have to be reliving the Cold War to believe that Russia should be deliberately kept down in any way. All reasonable people want a modern Russia, even if we only define modernization narrowly, as the Kremlin has done, as scientific-technical modernization.
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Caving to the Kremlin
Judging from Prime Minister David Cameron’s visit to Moscow on September 12, the British government has decided to cave into the Russians in the long-running dispute over the November 2006 murder in London of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko. The victim, who was highly critical of Vladimir Putin and had been given asylum in Britain in 2000, died an agonizing death at a North London hospital on November 23, three weeks after being poisoned with polonium 210—a rare and highly lethal radioactive substance. As a result of Russia’s unwillingness to cooperate with its investigation of the crime, Britain ended intelligence sharing with Moscow and introduced new visa restrictions on Russian businessmen trying to go to the UK. But Cameron’s meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev and Putin this week indicates that Britain is reassessing its Moscow strategy—and by extension, its view of the Russian leadership.
At the heart of the Litvinenko dispute has been the British authorities’ attempt to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, an ex-KGB bodyguard, as the prime suspect in the murder. Somehow—and this raises serious questions about the possible involvement of members of the Russian government—Lugovoi and his business partner, former military intelligence officer Dmitry Kovtun, obtained polonium 210 and brought it to London on two separate trips in October-November 2006, when they met with Litvinenko. Traces of polonium were later discovered in the hotels and restaurants they visited, as well as on a British Airways plane that Lugovoi traveled on and in the apartment of Kovtun’s ex-wife, whom he stayed with in Hamburg on his way to London.
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Cameron justifies Moscow visit to parliament
British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament on Wednesday that he had raised a number of human-rights issues with the Russian authorities during his recent visit to Moscow.
Cameron met with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minster Vladimir Putin during his brief visit to the Russian capital. He also met a number of human-rights activists.
He was accused during a news conference with Medvedev of “parking” the issue of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB officer killed in London in 2006, in exchange for trade relations. Cameron denied the allegation, saying the issue remained “important” for Britain.
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PM Pursues Litvinenko Murder on Moscow Visit
David Cameron has insisted that Britain will not give up on bringing the killer of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko to justice, as he kicked off his visit to Russia.
But the Prime Minister said the two governments had to end the “tit-for-tat culture” and work together despite festering tensions over the dissident’s murder.
It is the first visit by a British leader since the murder of Mr Litvinenko in London in 2006.
The poisoning of the Kremlin critic caused relations between the two countries to hit a post-Cold War low.
The wider aim of David Cameron’s visit is to increase trade and improve his relationship with the country’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister Putin.
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Kremlin Sees No Reset in Historic Cameron Visit
A top Kremlin aide cautioned on Sunday that no “reset” looms in long-troubled relations with Britain, hours before Prime Minister David Cameron was to arrive in Moscow for the first visit by a British leader in six years.
Cameron is leading a delegation including Foreign Secretary William Hague and BP chief executive Bob Dudley to talks with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that he hopes will boost economic ties and perhaps mend some fences.
Relations have been strained since the polonium poisoning death of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006 and the Russian government refused to extradite Britain’s prime suspect, State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi.
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Cameron meeting Putin is a ‘historical mistake’, says exiled Russian tycoon
Boris Berezovsky urges David Cameron to raise human rights abuses with Putin, especially those against businessmen.
Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky has warned David Cameron that his decision to meet Vladimir Putin is a “historical mistake” that will lead to more bloodshed inside the country.
Russian dissidents and exiles are urging the prime minister to raise Russia’s disastrous human rights record in his talks with the country’s leadership. Cameron is due to hold a day of talks in Russia on Monday, accompanied by two dozen British businessmen, as the two countries seek to revive a relationship all but frozen in the wake of the London killing of the Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko.
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