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Blowing up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror
by Alexander Litvinenko, Yuri Felshtinsky, Geoffrey Andrews and Co (Translator), Geoffrey Andrews and Co. (Translator)
Synopsis: Blowing Up Russia contains the allegations of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko against his former spymasters in Moscow which led to his being murdered in London in November 2006. In the book he and historian Yuri Felshtinsky detail how since 1999 the Russian secret service has been hatching a plot to return to the terror that was the hallmark of the KGB. Vividly written and based on Litvinenko's 20 years of insider knowledge of Russian spy campaigns, Blowing Up Russia describes how the successor of the KGB fabricated terrorist attacks and launched a war. Writing about Litvinenko, the surviving co-author recounts how the banning of the book in Russia led to three earlier deaths.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Blowing-up-Russia/Alexander-Litvinenko/e/9781594032011
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Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006
The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
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FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE (May 30, 2008)
Dear President Medvedev
By TATYANA MOROZOV and ALYONA MOROZOV
"In three coordinated bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, 292 people were murdered, including our mother Lyubov Morozova. We are writing this open letter to call on you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to order an independent, open and full investigation of these attacks."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121209647875130625.html
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Russian Terror Victims Ask for Truth
In 1999, a series of apartment bombings shook Russia and propelled the country headlong into the Second Chechen War. Nearly nine years after the attacks, which claimed 292 lives, many Russians remain unconvinced by the official version of events, which holds that Chechen separatists were responsible.
Two sisters, who lost their mother in the attack, have written an open letter to President Dmitri Medvedev, urging him to mount a fully open, independent investigation. The sisters, Tatyana and Alyona Morozov, currently reside in Missouri. Their appeal (below) was published in the Wall Street Journal newspaper on May 30th.
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Dear President Medvedev
In three coordinated bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, 292 people were murdered, including our mother Lyubov Morozova. We are writing this open letter to call on you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to order an independent, open and full investigation of these attacks.
Although these crimes were blamed on Chechen terrorists and used to justify the resumption of a full-scale war against Chechnya later that month, there are numerous indications that Russian security services may have been involved. There is also clear evidence of a cover-up by the authorities. We do not consider this case solved.
Let us remind you of some of the facts:
* On September 23, 1999, police arrested three Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who had planted a detonator and RDX – the same explosive used in the earlier bombings – in the basement of a residential building in the city of Ryazan. The FSB explained the agent’s activities as a “training exercise,” claiming the sacks of explosives actually contained only sugar. The investigation was dropped and all evidence classified “top secret.”
* At about the same time, a Russian soldier discovered RDX in sacks labeled as “sugar” at his army base near Ryazan. The incident was never investigated and the evidence classified.
* On September 13, 1999, the Speaker of the Duma, Gennady Seleznev, announced that an apartment house in Volgodonsk had been blown up – three days before the attack actually occurred.
* Mark Blumenfeld, the property manager of our house on Guryanova Street in Moscow that was blown up, told our lawyer and several journalists that FSB agents had “talked him into” changing his testimony. The agents showed him a photo of Achemez Gochiyayev, a Chechen he had never seen before, and under pressure he “identified” him as the man who had rented storage space in the basement.
* The composite sketch based on Mr. Blumenfeld’s initial description of what the real suspect looked like disappeared from the police file and was replaced with the photograph of Mr. Gochiyaev. Meanwhile, our attorney Mikhail Trepashkin, himself a former KGB agent, told reporters that he had recognized FSB agent Vladimir Romanovich from the police sketch. Romanovich was subsequently killed in Cyprus in a hit and run incident that was never solved.
* In November 2003, on the eve of the trial of two Chechens later convicted for transporting the explosives used in the Moscow bombings, Mr. Trepashkin was arrested after a gun had been planted in his car. This prevented him from submitting Mr. Blumenfeld’s statement to court that the FSB agents had pressured him to give false evidence. The trial of the two Chechens was not convincing to us or the world as it was held behind closed doors and human rights groups noted numerous violations of due process. Mr. Blumenfeld’s statement and the replacement of the police sketch with the photo of Mr. Gochiyayev was never reviewed by a Russian court.
* Four people investigating the FSB’s possible involvement in the bombings were assassinated. Duma Deputy Sergei Yushenkov was shot dead in Moscow in April 2003 and his colleague Yuri Schekochihin died of apparent poisoning three months later. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in October 2006 in her Moscow apartment block and a month later, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died of poisoning in London.
Many Russians have come to the conclusion that the bombings may have been the work of Russian security services. As for our family, our initial trust in the official version of a “Chechen trail” is long gone. We have come to believe that our mother and neighbors were sacrificed for a political end: To justify the war in Chechnya and help Vladimir Putin become president the following year. Only an objective investigation could make us change this view.
Mr. President, we are writing this open letter because we would like to believe that your ascent to the presidency will end this dark period in Russian history. You were not involved.
We realize that you owe the previous regime a debt of loyalty and gratitude. But the powers of the state were entrusted to you not to protect possible murderers. You are now in control of Russia and your position imposes a higher responsibility. Before history, the people and the memory of innocent victims, you have an obligation to find and tell the truth about these crimes.
Related articles:
* A Record Harvest of Spies
* An Open Letter to the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia
* Opposition Activist Revealed as FSB Agent
* Beslan Rights Group Charged With Extremism
* Russian Immigration Agency Knew Nothing About Morar’s Deportation
* Investigative Journalist Barred From Returning to Moscow
* Kasparov on His FSB Interrogation
Source: Russian Terror Victims Ask for Truth:
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2008/05/31/russian-terror-victims-ask-for-truth/
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The Federal Security Service (FSB - Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, previously known as Federal Counterintelligence Service - FSK) is the most powerful of the successors to the KGB.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/world/russia/fsb.htm
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From AP via FoxNews.com...
Last Living Beslan School Attacker Sentenced to Life in Prison
May 28, 2006
VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia — AP
A southern Russian court on Friday sentenced the sole surviving Beslan school attacker to life in prison, capping a yearlong trial that survivors and victims' relatives say has left the most essential questions about the tragedy unanswered.
They demand to know just who bore the most responsibility: Nur-Pashi Kulayev and his 31 fellow militants, or the officials whose negligence or even alleged complicity allowed them to seize hundreds of children and parents on the first day of school in September 2004.
Countrywatch: Russia
"I did not go to court to become convinced of Kulayev's guilt, but to reconstruct all the circumstances of the terrorist attack and find the truth," said Aneta Gadiyeva, whose daughter was killed. "But I did not learn anything new and did not get any answers." ..."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197093,00.html
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Yushchenko: Russia blocking poisoning probe
By Bonnie Malkin and agencies, September 12, 2007
Mr Yushchenko before and after the poisoning
"Mr Yushchenko, a pro-European politician who wanted to bring his country out of Russia's shadow, fell seriously ill on September 6, 2004 as he was competing in presidential elections against a pro-Moscow candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, now prime minister.
After months of tests in an Austrian clinic, it was determined that he had ingested a massive amount of the poison dioxin.
Although he survived, his face was left bloated and pockmarked, and he has had to undergo regular treatment to rid his body of the toxin.
In an interview with Le Figaro he said he believed the dioxin used to disfigure him was made in a Russian lab.
Mr Yushchenko did not directly accuse the Russian government of being behind his poisoning, but he did say he had 'practically put all the pieces together' and the attempt against him 'was not a private action'. ..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1562838/Yushchenko-Russia-blocking-poisoning-probe.html
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"Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko (born February 23, 1954) is the third and current President of Ukraine". He took office on January 23, 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko
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(Ukraine) Hunt starts for Yushchenko's poisoner:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/1478922/Hunt-starts-for-Yushchenko%27s-poisoner.html
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Symposium: To Kill a Russian Journalist
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2006
The murder of internationally renowned Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in early October 2006 was yet another troubling sign of Russia’s retreat into its totalitarian past. Today Frontpage Symposium has gathered a distinguished panel of experts to discuss why Anna Politkovskaya was killed and what the tragic loss of her life symbolizes about the direction in which Vladimir Putin’s Russia is heading.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=BDBFAEF5-5295-400F-807B-83D20FFA285C
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'PUTIN'S RUSSIA' by Anna Politkovskaya:
http://www.annapolitkovskaya.com/
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Col. Alexander Litvinenko
4 Dec 1962 - 23 Nov 2006
"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 civilised value."
Obituary: Alexander Litvinenko
Times of London, 25 November 2006
On April 23, 2002, Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian secret service, arrived at Heathrow, supposedly on a stopover before flying on to the Caribbean. Claiming that he was being persecuted by the Russian authorities, he sought political asylum.
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was born in 1962 in Voronezh, south of Moscow. After high school and extended service in the Soviet Army (in which his grandfather was an officer), he graduated from the Interior Forces Military Academy, joining the KGB in 1988.
While his early career was in espionage, by 1991 he had made a name for himself in the organised crime and anti-terror divisions. He also worked in the central apparatus, leading co-operation between the KGB, by then renamed the FSB, and the Moscow organised crime police squad. In 1997 he joined one of the FSB’s most secret departments, specialising in the pursuit of criminal organisations, and became its deputy head.
This exemplary career came to an abrupt end on November 18, 1998, when, in a press conference, he accused his FSB superiors of extortion, corruption and illegal assassinations. The accusations were detailed and seemed credible. He was suspended and in March 1999 arrested and held in isolation in the infamous KGB Lefortovo prison.
He was tried and acquitted in November 1999, but immediately rearrested. In 2000 charges were dropped after he promised to stay in Moscow. He and his family lived under intense surveillance and when they heard that further charges were being prepared, they fled. They flew to Turkey and from there to London.
Tried in absentia and sentenced to nine years in prison, Litvinenko found work in Britain as a postman, while his wife taught ballroom dancing. He continued his campaign against his former employers in interviews and books, and contributed anti-Russian material to a Chechen website. At the time of his death he was investigating the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
He is survived by his wife Marina and his two children.
Alexander Litvinenko, former officer of the Russian secret service, was born on December 4, 1962. He died on November 23, 2006, aged 43
http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/litvinenko.html
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Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security agent fighting for his life in a UK hospital after allegedly being poisoned, has been a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin since before he became president in 2000.
Mr Litvinenko is thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another opponent of the Kremlin who was shot dead last month, and said recently he was investigating her murder. It was after being handed documents apparently relating to the case that he was taken ill more than two weeks ago.
But he is perhaps best known for a book in which he alleges that agents co-ordinated the 1999 apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people. He now appears to have fallen victim to the kind of plots which he wrote about.
Arrest
Mr Litvinenko, 43, first became a security agent under the Soviet-era KGB, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in its later incarnations.
He is reported to have fallen out with Vladimir Putin, then head of the security service, in the late 1990s, after failing in attempts to crack down on corruption within the organisation. In 1998, he first came to prominence by exposing an alleged plot to assassinate the then powerful tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who himself now lives in self-imposed exile in the UK. He was subsequently arrested on charges of abusing his office and spent nine months in a remand centre before being acquitted.
In 1999 he wrote Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he accused the current Russian security service, the FSB, of carrying out several apartment house bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people. The attacks, which Moscow blamed on Chechen rebels, helped swing public opinion behind Russia's second war in the breakaway republic.
Petrol bombs
Complaining of persecution, in 2000 Mr Litvinenko fled to the UK where he sought, and was granted, asylum. But after settling in an unnamed London suburb, the former spy continued to behave as if on the run, constantly changing his contact details. The Times newspaper reported that over the summer someone tried to push a pram loaded with petrol bombs at his front door. Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of President Putin, he has continued to make allegations about his former bosses. Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before 9/11.