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An international manhunt was launched last night for a Russian-born British media magnate whose mysterious disappearance has possible links to the murder of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko.

It took Alexander Litvinenko 23 painful days to die. It has taken another agonizing 2,987 days for the British government to open a public inquiry into his murder, a process that cannot deliver justice to the victim, his widow Marina or son Anatoly, but may at least provide an official account of events leading up to his death. As he lay dying after ingesting radioactive polonium-210, Litvinenko blamed the Kremlin. Yet the evidence expected to unfold at the High Court in London over the next 10 weeks is likely to reveal not only an intricate web of relationships between spies...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “common criminal dressed up as a Head of State” who ordered the murder of Alexander Litvinenko to stop him exposing him, the inquiry heard. The former spy was murdered for trying to reveal Putin’s close links to organised crime and a cabal of crime lords who prop up his corrupt regime, it was claimed. Ben Emmerson QC, representing the Litvinenko family, said the trail behind the “act of unspeakable barbarism” led directly to Putin’s door. He said Russia was a “Mafia state” where the Kremlin and Russian organised crime syndicates were “indistinguishable”. Mr Litvinenko...

It's said that some people will believe anything. And that's what Guardian editors must be thinking, based on their latest story on the Litvinenko affair. It's titled "Fresh Evidence Suggests Litvinenko Was Killed to Keep Him Quiet." Here's what the Guardian wants its readers to believe: 1. Some bad actor (widely expected to be the Russian state according to the Guardian) wanted to "prevent [Litvinenko] from testifying about Vladimir Putin’s links with Russian organized crime." 2. That there is now added "credence to the theory that eliminating Litvinenko was a matter of utmost urgency for the Kremlin." 3. "Amateur killers"...

The radiation expert who discovered the poison that killed Alexander Litvinenko "committed suicide" by stabbing himself repeatedly with two knives months after a trip to Russia, a coroner ruled. Matthew Puncher, 46, bled to death at his home after receiving multiple stab wounds across his body from two kitchen knives, an inquest heard. A pathologist said he could not completely exclude the possibility that someone else had been involved in the death of the father, but came to the conclusion that the injuries were self-inflicted.

LONDON: The exotic murder-by-polonium of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko throws into question most of the previous analyses of "dirty bombs," terrorist attacks using radioactive isotopes wrapped in explosives (or using other dispersion techniques) to spread radioactive material in crowded areas. Essentially all analysts, myself included, played down the possibility of using alpha radiation — fast- moving helium nuclei ejected during the radioactive decay of certain isotopes, such as of polonium 210, the substance that killed Litvinenko — as a source of dirty bombs.

Dmitry Kovtun is dead, say reports. Mr Kovtun led an unusual life: from wannabe porn star, rubbish collector, waiter and alcoholic, to one of two Russian agents implicated in the radioactive poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. What dreams are made of.

...Litvinenko "was giving Scaramella lots of information about Russian and criminal infiltrations in Italy, but most of it was very difficult to verify and crosscheck. It was a little bit out on a limb." In the old days, Litvinenko had been familiar with criminal clans in Russia, now he was making risky approaches to the Italian mafia. Scaramella believed if they could get inside this network, they would be able to leverage much more damaging intelligence about Italian politicians. They spread their net wider. The Litvinenko dossier lists a dizzying roll call of names investigated by the pair, among them...

A police investigation has been launched into the death of the 67-year-old - a wanted man in Russia, and an opponent of President Vladimir Putin. A former Kremlin power-broker whose fortunes declined under Mr Putin, Mr Berezovsky emigrated to the UK in 2000. Thames Valley Police said the death, at a property in Ascot, Berkshire, was being treated as unexplained. The area around the property has been cordoned off to allow the investigation to take place, the force said. The inquiry was at a very early stage and more details will be released when available, it added. A South Central...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday denounced Britain for making insulting demands that betrayed outdated colonial thinking, in comments likely to escalate a row over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Britain and Russia have each expelled four diplomats in a spat over the murder and Moscow's refusal to extradite the chief suspect in the case. "What they propose is an obvious vestige of colonial thinking," Putin was shown saying on Russian state television. "They must have clearly forgotten that Britain is no longer a colonial power, there are no colonies left and, thank God, Russia has never...

Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky has never made any secret of his loathing for President Vladimir Putin, but in an interview in his London exile the controversial tycoon went one step further with a vow to mount a coup. "President Putin violates the constitution and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today, and that includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working at," the oligarch, looking vibrant despite five years in self-imposed exile, told AFP at his Piccadilly office. For the past 18 months, "we have been preparing to take power by force in...

Oligarch Boris Berezovsky may have been killed by British spies from MI5 or MI6 to stop him leaking state secrets to the Russians, a leading supporter of Vladimir Putin argued today. Fears in the West that the tycoon was planning to make peace with the president and end his 13-year UK exile may have led to him being assassinated, Kremlin insider Sergei Markov has said. After falling out with Putin in 2000, the 67-year-old fled to Britain where he was later given political asylum.

Murder was not ruled out today after an inquest heard that exiled Russian Boris Berezovsky was found lying in his bathroom with a ligature around his neck. A piece of the same material around his throat was tied on to the shower rail above him, indicating he apparently hanged from the rail. But police told a coroner they still cannot rule out murder. Det Insp Mark Bissell said: “The results of the postmortem found that the cause of death was consistent with hanging. "The pathologist has found nothing to indicate a sign of struggle or third party involvement.” He added...

Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch found lying on his bathroom floor with a ligature around his neck, was in good spirits the night before his died and was looking forward to a holiday to Israel, according to his girlfriend. Katerina Sabirova, 23, said she did not believe he had killed himself and said that he sounded “better than usual” when she spoke to him. She said they were due to go to the Dead Sea three days later. A post-mortem conducted last month found that Mr Berezovsky's death was "consistent with hanging" and that there were no signs of violence...

Nikolai Glushkov, a Russian exile who was a close friend of a noted critic of President Vladimir Putin, has died from an "unexplained" cause in London, police say. The Metropolitan Police says that its counterterrorism unit is handling the case "because of associations that the man is believed to have had." Glushkov, 68, was a close friend of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a prominent critic of the Kremlin who was found dead in 2013. At the time, an inquiry found he had hanged himself — but Glushkov publicly disputed the idea that his friend and former business ally would have...

LONDON — Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian oligarch and long-time opponent of the Kremlin, died at his home in Britain on Saturday aged 67 in unexplained circumstances, officials said. British police launched a full investigation into the death at the mansion in the well-heeled commuter town of Ascot, near London, saying it was "currently being treated as unexplained". Berezovsky's lawyer Alexander Dobrovinsky told Russian television the tycoon had committed suicide after suffering from weeks of depression over his huge debts, although another friend strongly denied this. Berezovsky was one of handful of businessmen who made a fortune out of the...

A Russian deputy attorney general, who is thought to have directed Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya in her efforts abroad on behalf of Russia's government, reportedly died Wednesday night in a helicopter crash. The Daily Beast reported that Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was aboard an unauthorized helicopter flight, which crashed near the village of Vonyshevo, outside of Moscow. Karapetyan was reportedly behind Veselnitskaya's global efforts to lobby lawmakers to overturn anti-corruption acts such as the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which passed in 2012. The U.S. legislation is similar to others around the world which commemorate Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died while trying...

Recently we learned that President Putin is spending more time in bunkers and cracking down on internal security as he fears the possibility of a drone strike or a coup.In addition to seeking to preserve his own personal security, Putin has cracked down on people's personal freedoms by shutting off social media and private messaging accounts and pushing everyone toward Kremlin-monitored accounts.But there are signs that this repression is starting to backfire as people are increasingly willing to oppose Putin publicly. Case in point, Ilya Remeslo, a former Putin supporter who spent years harassing Putin's enemies.Remeslo was once part of...

Former vice-president of the Russian concern YUKOS Mikhail Rogachev has been found dead in Moscow . This was reported by the Russian propaganda Telegram channel Mash “One of the top YUKOS executives, Mikhail Rogachev, fell out of a window and died in the center of Moscow. He had previously committed suicide,” the report says. It is noted that Rogachev was 64 years old. According to Mash, he had a severe form of oncology. “He left a suicide note and committed suicide in the morning on Protopopovsky Lane,” the Telegram channel reported.

Somebody new going to fall out of a window in Moscow? Seems the czar of Russia is not well regarded by the boyars he holds in his closest circle, and now the entire world now knows about it. That's what we read in the Daily Mail:Moscow's high society has been rocked by a scandal after a pair of prominent Vladimir Putin cronies were allegedly heard insulting the Russian despot.Oligarch and former Russian senator Farkhad Akhmedov and high-profile Moscow music producer Iosif Prigozhin, both supposedly supporters of Putin, have been accused of calling him 'Satan' and a 'dwarf'.An audio recording of...