Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the FSB, Russia's security service, fled to Britain in 2000 after publicly accusing his superiors of corruption and plotting murders. In London he worked with the exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky, wrote that the FSB was behind the 1999 apartment bombings, and helped British intelligence. On November 1, 2006, he met two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair. That evening he fell violently ill. Doctors were puzzled until, hours before his death on November 23, tests found polonium-210, a rare radioactive substance produced in nuclear reactors. Investigators traced a trail of contamination across London to places the two men had visited.¹⁴

Britain charged Lugovoi with murder, but Russia refused to extradite him, and he later became a member of the Russian parliament. A public inquiry led by Sir Robert Owen reported in January 2016 that Lugovoi and Kovtun had poisoned Litvinenko in an FSB operation that was probably approved by FSB director Nikolai Patrushev and by President Vladimir Putin. In 2021 the European Court of Human Rights also held Russia responsible. Russia denies involvement.²³