Today’s Economist has an article analyzing how the “fever pitch” of conspiracy theories following the Litvinenko poisoning is helping to drive the thaw between Russia and her neighbors:
That Mr Putin should be so anxious to strengthen Russia’s weakening ties with its “near abroad”, and with his few remaining Western allies, is understandable. The radioactive fall-out from the death last week in London of Alexander Litvinenko—a former KGB agent who was apparently poisoned with polonium—may have been small (although radioactive traces have been found on aircraft that flew between Moscow and London before Mr Litvinenko’s death). But the diplomatic fall-out could hardly have been bigger. Conspiracy theories in Moscow about who killed Mr Litvinenko have reached a pitch of dialecticism that is scarcely intelligible to outsiders. It was done either by Mr Putin, or to discredit him; to promote one of his possible successors as president, or to force him to stay in office. The polonium was either an intentional warning or a cock-up. Mr Litvinenko was murdered by the same forces who killed Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist, in October; or somebody saw her shooting as an opportunity to settle other scores. Mr Putin’s allies point the finger at Boris Berezovsky, a renegade Russian oligarch who lives in London and sponsored Mr Litvinenko. His alleged goal? To disgrace Mr Putin and ultimately force his clique from power. The Russians have agreed to co-operate with a British investigation. But whoever did it, Mr Putin has been vilified in the West’s media. It emerged this week that Yegor Gaidar, a former prime minister, fell violently ill in Dublin on the day after Mr Litvinenko died (Mr Gaidar is now apparently recovering). Although a critic of some of Mr Putin’s policies, Mr Gaidar is a highly unlikely target for the Kremlin. But his plight can only add to the impression, widely held west of Minsk, that Russia is an increasingly dark place.
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It is unlikely that Mr Putin ordered the assassination of Mr Litvinenkoby simply poisoning him with polonium.Russian spies prefer to act covertlyand to stage assassinations so as to conceal the true assassins.If the Putin regime had wanted to assassinate Mr Litivinenkothen they would have staged it to look like an ordinary mafia-style execution,such as was done to Ms Politkovskaya.That is their style.That leaves two possibilities.One is that some of Mr Putin’s friends staged this eventto force him to stay in officesince otherwise he will be exposed after he leaves office.With friends like this who needs enemies?The other possibility is that one of Mr Putin’s enemies,such as perhaps an exiled Russian oligarch,staged this event specifically to embarrass the Putin regimeand diminish Russian power abroad.Regardless of who actually did it,there must certainly be a paper-trail somewherewhich leads to the polonium used to poison Mr Litvinenko.Polonium-210 is produced in only a few nuclear-reactors in the worldwhich are designed to produce radio-nuclides.No one simply cooks up a batch of polonium and sneaks it out of the back-doorwhen no one else is looking.If the polonium originated in Russiathen Mr Putin certainly has the means to find out about this.However even if identifies the culpritno one will actually believe that Mr Putin did not originate this plot.When the fox tells us that a weasel has killed the chickenswe are disinclined to believe the foxbecause foxes lie just as much as weasels do.Tough luck for Mr Putin,Weep a tear for him but only onebecause that is one more than he will ever waste on us.Perhaps Russians should elect Pinocchio as their next president.
Afton, Russian spies may have needed in the Cold War to leave a cold trail, but, Putin only needs to leave an ambiguous one. He needs only to kill a select few to silence others. He’s got the tv stations silenced now. Journalists critical of him are being killed. His behavior is that of all classic fascists in their consolidation phase.Putin is a clown. He is not as stealth as the KGB of his father’s era. Skills decay like inheritances with time.I’d like to think that Putin’s shelf life is short, but, I’m not so sure Russians will make better choices.That western governments continue to treat him as anything other than a fascist menace is disgraceful.