Three weeks have passed since the publication of the English report that points to Putin as “probable” instigator of the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko and to strike is now all that has happened since the release of the news: nothing. One minute after the release of the report, the shock wave of the news had triggered all the alarms of the Russian media machine. Red bulbs on the desks of the editors started blinking, and the anchors were put to work. Rt, the battleship of the Russian propaganda in English, stopped the usual news flow and concentrated all its forces against the words of Judge Robert Owen.
Too bad it was all useless. Because western media were already about to silence the news.
One hundred years
Aleksander Goldfarb has clear ideas. “World leaders will shake Putin’s hand just as they did with Hitler and Stalin,” he wrote in an editorial for the site of Gordon information. “The findings of the London court are significant, but no one will begin a war with Russia.”
Goldfarb speaks because he knows it all. He is the one who helped Litvinenko to flee to Britain, he is the one who was next to him in the last weeks of life, he is the one who has read his deathbed statement on the day of his death, the letter indicating Putin as his murderer.
Yet, the British prime minister David Cameron used strong words. “This is a state sponsored murder,” he said, condemning Putin. Additionally, a murder of a British citizen in the streets of London. But who does remember the confidential document leaked from the hands of Cameron’s advisor, Hugh Powell, as he was entering 10 Downing Street? There was in a few lines the British policy towards Russia: no sanctions, no NATO reinforcement, nor the closure of London’s financial center to Russians.
According to Goldfarb, the inquiry effects will be seen in a century. “A hundred years from now when our descendants will study the history of the rule of the second president of the Russian Federation. There will appear in the books three important ‘achievements’ of Putin – the annexation of Crimea, the shooting down of the Malaysian Boeing, and the murder of Litvinenko.”
Sovereignty
Silence fell on the outcome of the report is so far the biggest thing that happened. Then perhaps it is worth mentioning here, now the conclusions of Judge Owen. “The open evidence that I have set out above establishes a strong circumstantial case that the Russian State was responsible for Mr Litvinenko’s death. A number of the witnesses who gave evidence during the open sessions of the Inquiry expressed strong views as to President Putin’s direct involvement.”
Owen to get to its conclusions following the trail of polonium 210. The radioactive isotope “is produced in a civilian agency which is Russian atomic industry, ministry, Rosatom, and to transfer polonium to FSB would require an interagency authority, and the only authority that could authorise such transfer is the presidential administration.” Mr. Owen says that “Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me, I find that the FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by [the head of the FSB] Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin.”
Even with such a strong number of clues and evidences, Goldfarb could be right. But perhaps most of all it was right Litvinenko himself. “I understand the West wants to get gas and oil from Russia and beliefs can’t be traded for oil and gas,” he once said. “But when a politician is trading he is trading with the sovereignty of his country.”
@daniloeliatweet
Too bad it was all useless. Because western media were already about to silence the news.
