LITVINENKO, ALEKSANDR VALTEROVICH

(1962–2006)

Security officer andjournalist. A formerKGBagent from Voronezh, Aleksandr Litvinenko skyrocketed to international notoriety in 2006 when he fell ill in London, England. He had been granted asylum byGreat Britainafter alleging that his superiors had ordered the assassination of the Russianoligarch Boris Berezovsky. As a journalist operating in the West, he made further allegations against the Kremlin, most notably that the 1999apartment bombingshad been perpetrated by the Russiansecurity servicesand thatVladimir Putinwas complicit in the murder of the journalistAnna Politkovskaya. On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko was hospitalized; the cause of his sickness was later determined to be poisoning by polonium-210, a rare radioactive substance. He died on 23 November 2006. An investigation by British authorities implicatedAndrey Lugovoyin Litvinenko’s death; however, a request for his extradition from Russia was denied, sending Anglo-Russian relations into their worst state since the Soviet period. Litvinenko was posthumously demonized in Russia as a criminal, a spy, and a traitor.

See alsoEspionage.