Ex-KGB officer poisoned in UK

According to reports from the BBC and The Telegraph, UK police are investigating the alleged poisoning of a former KGB agent and critic of President Vladimir Putin who has been living in exile in Britain.

Litvinenko, who has a Ukrainian surname, despite being referred to as "Russian" by both the BBC and The Telegraph, has written several articles and contributed to books critical of Putin. His writings generally attempt to demonstrate that the most fundamental problems in modern Russia do not result from the smash-and-grab free-for-all of the so-called "liberal radical reforms" of the Yeltsin era, but instead from covert resistance to these reforms from within the Russian special services. He also espouses some very far-fetched beliefs - such as this article where he makes an outlandish and bizarre comparison between Putin and Hitler.

He also claimed that the right hand of Bin Laden, the Number Two in "Al-Qaeda" was trained at the secret base of the Russian secret services on Caucasus. Given that Al-Qaeda is nothing more than a collection of conveniently placed mirrors accompanied by the requisite amount of smoke, nothing more than a figment of fevered imaginations, and that no proof has been produced that the organisation actually exists, this claim is patently ludicrous.

According to newsru.com, Litvinenko was invited to a London restaurant by an Italian citizen, Mario Scaramella, who claimed he had some important information about a recent murder of Anna Politkovskaya. It is at this meeting where Mr Litvinenko was supposedly poisoned with Thalium, an extremely toxic heavy metal.

The Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets claims that Mario Scaramella is a CIA agent, whereas the ChechenPress claim that Mr. Scaramella is an FSB agent in Italy and a close friend and business partner of the FSB deputy chief Kolmogorov. They also claim that the Italian visited the FSB headquarters in Moscow several times.

It is possible that either of these claims are true, that Scaramella is an agent for the FSB or CIA. It is also possible that both claims are false - that Scaramella has nothing to do with either agency or the poisoning. It is even possible that both claims are simultaneously true, as double agents have not been exactly uncommon throughout history.

Given the accusations, counter-accusations and rhetoric on both sides, it can be difficult to discover what really happened. As always with such events, the first question I ask is "cui bono?". Who benefits?

Does it really benefit Putin that much to be rid of someone whose claims were so clearly subjective and often off-the-wall? Or does it benefit those who want to weaken the resurgent power that is Russia, in order to continue their previously-interrupted looting of Russian resources, unhampered by a strong Russian leadership? Does such an attempted murder benefit Russia and the Russian leadership, or would it be more beneficial, in a propaganda sense, to the country that is busy building bases in almost every state bordering Russia?