Polonium is so exceedingly rare that only about 100 grams is believed to be produced each year, said Dr. Mike Keir, a radiation protection adviser at Royal Victoria Infirmary.
British officials were forced to call a meeting of Cobra, their civil emergency organization, to assess the threat to the public by radioactive residue. They declared that while their was no public health risk, the death of Litvinenko was "unprecendented" in Britain and others said it had "all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored assassination." Litvinenko was a fierce critic of Putin, who is also a former agent of the Russian Federal Security Bureau, the modern equivalent of the KGB. Litvnenko left the FSB in 1998 after accusing his superiors of ordering him to assassinate Boris Berezovsky, a Russian billionaire and another opponent of Putin, in addition to covering up evidence that the spy agency had instigated a bombing of apartment buildings to incite the second Chechen war. After spending months in a Russian jail, he fled to Britain upon his release. When he was poisoned, Litvinenko was meeting contacts to try and investigate the asassination of yet another Putin dissident and personal friend, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was sick with poison as well, but was finished off in her Moscow apartment by a gunman. They also discussed a "hit list" purportedly containing the names of Russian dissidents abroad that the Kremlin wanted to see dead - a list which allegedly including Litvinenko.
Putin was so haughty as to suggest that the death of Litivinenko wasn't "unnatural" and "not violent" and claimed that any attempt by British agencies or Scotland Yard to press Moscow on the matter would be "outrageous." But the British did just that, formally asking the Kremlin for any and all documents possibly related to Alexander's death, as he had recently become a British citizen. The professional assassination of a British citizen by foreign agents using a radioactive material is a serious issue; the "barbaric" nature of Putin (as friends and entourage of Litvinenko have described it) seems on full display, and the former spy-turned-President of post-Cold War Russia, who has been sliding the nation towards ever more authoritarian rule with nationalized industries and the stifling of dissent, has gone so far as to prevent Russian news outlets from reporting the poisoning to the Russian people. Most people in Russia, according to international news agencies, are unaware of the situation entirely.
So; was Litvinenko assassinated? If so, did the orders truly come from the top, from Putin himself? I posit that the answer to both questions is a resounding and indignant "yes."
Alexander Litvinenko's deathbed address to Putin:
“You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.â€
