Posted on 11/23/2006 3:18:14 PM PST by MadIvan
The poisoned Russian spy breathed defiance at the Kremlin as the effects of a mystery cocktail pushed him to the brink of death.
“I want to survive, just to show them,” Alexander Litvinenko said in an exclusive interview just hours before he slipped into unconsciousness.
Too weak to move his limbs and visibly in great pain, the former Russian intelligence officer suggested that he knew that he may not win his struggle against the lethal chemicals destroying his vital organs. But he said the campaign for truth would go on with or without him.
“The bastards got me,” he whispered. “But they won’t get everybody.”
As he spoke, the former Kremlin bodyguard Andrei Luovoi, who has been accused of carrying out the poisoning, told The Times that he was not involved and was prepared to travel to London to prove his innocence.
Mr Litvinenko, 43, uttered his defiant words to Andrei Nekrasov, a friend and film-maker, who has visited him in University College Hospital in London every day this week. Mr Nekrasov described last night the extraordinary scenes in hospital, where one ward looks like a scene from The Godfather.
All visitors are screened and photographed by armed police officers. They are then ushered into a darkened room where Mr Litvinenko lies in excruciating pain.
“Sasha (Litvinenko) was a good-looking, physically strong and courageous man,” Mr Nekrasov told The Times. “But the figure who greeted me looked like a survivor from the Nazi concentration camps.”
Although he has seen Mr Litvinenko sometimes more than once a day, Tuesday was the last occasion on which his friend could communicate properly. Yet in some of his final remarks before losing consciousness, the former spy remained defiant in his battle against President Putin and the Russian security services.
He also managed a joke at his own expense, suggesting that his poisoning was proof that his campaign against the Kremlin had targeted the right people. “This is what it takes to prove one has been telling the truth,” he said.
He was referring to allegations he made in a book, The FSB Blows up Russia, which accuses the Russian security services of causing a seriesof apartment block explosions in Moscow in 1999 that helped to propel Vladimir Putin into the presidency the next year.
Mr Nekrasov revealed last night that Mr Litvinenko’s British citizenship had come through the last time they met, the day of a service at Westminster Abbey for Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist friend and critic of the Kremlin who was murdered in Moscow.
“We discussed the likelihood of another killing. Sasha warned me not to go back to Russia because it was too dangerous,” Mr Nekrasov said. “Very sadly he turned out to be the next victim, attacked in the perceived safety of Central London.”
On Wednesday night Mr Litvinenko suffered a heart attack. He is now unconscious on a life-support system.
Doctors continue to be baffled about what Mr Litvinenko ingested on November 1, at the first of two meetings with Russians. Geoff Bellingan, director of critical care at University College Hospital, said: “There was a dramatic deterioration in Alexander Litvinenko’s condition overnight and he is critically ill in intensive care.”
He said doctors were now convinced that the cause was not a heavy metal such as thallium, as originally suspected. Nor had he swallowed any mystery objects. “Radiation poisoning is also unlikely. Despite extensive tests, we are still unclear as to the cause.”
Andrea Sella, a chemistry expert at University College, said that every day made it more difficult to identify the poison. “They have to find some unspecified poison. They don’t know whether it is a single substance or a mixture,” Dr Sella said. Even if doctors can identify it, experts speculated that it could be too late to save Mr Litvinenko, more than three weeks after he was poisoned.
same here
When is Putin's term of office up?
Realistically and quite literally, whenever he kicks the bucket....from old age, a coup or by a straight shooting Russian patriot.
I have no faith he'd willingly give up real power in Russia.
The KGB is still there, obviously. They may have changed the names on the door, but I am willing to bet that nothing changed inside the buildings.
Russia is as Russia always was. Even the stones are guilty.
really bad come-uppance indeed- I'm betting that there are deaths all over Russia that are 'unnexplained' http://sacredscoop.com
What about AMANITA mushroom or a 'classical' favorite like hemlock???? Words from the knowledgeable would be helpful.
The point is: the cold war is renewed, and no Mr. Niceguy will work.
It IS time to 'wake up and smell the coffee.'
Mrs. Espoman
Okay..if this is true...
Why has BILL not been asked about this?
Note the date of that quote.
Pres. Bush has learned a LOT about the world, and it's leaders since that day.
Re post 15, I think you're right. Communism may well be alive and kicking. Just what we need, a war combatting Islam and Communism simultaneously.
I would like to think so. As to Putin, do you have anything to think that is true?
<< Why has BILL not been asked about this? >>
Assuming you're not putting me on with that remarkable (As in: where on Earth have you been hiding?) question, because the mass media are totally enamored of, terrified of and/or in the thrall of both Cli'tons. Especially of their god, the "male" one.
Sorry...forgot my "rhetorical question" warning.
This is nothing new with the russians. Been going on since there was a KGB. RIP.
No...I just go on the assumption that as a "poker player"...he doesn't give away his feelings or thoughts.
One thing I find curious...is that Condi Rice has since 2001, become the Sec. of State...and her degrees were in Russian history and politics (I think)...I know it was about Russia.
One would think that she would be able to anticipate what is going on...and warn Bush...but, the problem is, she works for the State Dept....which should be renamed ..
It should be the "We have to get along with everyone" Department.
Whew.
I'm not. Just shows how simple minded Bush can be in his trust of people, be it Democraps, the press or a former KGB agent like Putin, thinking all 3 are trust worthy, when all 3 a traitorous snakes! He didn't look into Putins eyes and see his soul, he saw a hole!
Do you remember that of all the hearings on Clinton, the media never televised one of them? Except when they called Haley Barbour that is. What a joke.
"Here's the good news. Russia is losing 700,000 people a year. Ha Ha Ha."
Yeah, and soon they'll be a Muslim nation the way they're going - with nukes and God knows what else.
You die.
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