Free Republic

Alexander Litvinenko’s final testament, released after his death on Thursday evening, is deeply moving. It is also political dynamite. He thanked the hospital that battled to save him. He thanked his friends and the British authorities and paid tribute to the country that had granted him citizenship a month before his death. And dramatically accusing President Putin of having no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value, he said the Russian leader may have succeeded in silencing one man, “but a howl of protest from around the world will reverberate in your ears for the rest of your life”.His...

MOSCOW--Until a week ago, Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, was virtually unknown outside the murky world of Russian intelligence. With his death in London from a massive dose of the radioactive element polonium 210, however, his fate may lead to a fundamentally different relationship between Russia and the West. Beginning with the Yeltsin era, two U.S. administrations have muted their criticism of Russia. This was the case even in the face of a series of political murders in Russia. But if Litvinenko, a British subject, was murdered by Russian intelligence on British...