The Litvinenko Inquiry

Part 9 | Chapters 1 to 12 | Who directed the killing?
Chapter 12: Russian State responsibility –
involvement of Nikolai Patrushev
and President Vladimir Putin
9.201 My finding that Mr Litvinenko was killed at the direction of the FSB gives rise to one
further issue. At what level of seniority was the plan to kill Mr Litvinenko authorised?
Was Mr Patrushev, the then head of the FSB, aware of the operation? Was President
Putin aware of the operation?
9.202 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 in Mr Litvinenko’s
death. It is perhaps worth recalling that the first person to make this allegation was
Mr Litvinenko himself, in the deathbed statement to which I have referred above.
9.203 Yuri Shvets was asked whether, on the assumption that Mr Litvinenko had been killed
in an operation that had been authorised by a Russian State organisation, such an
operation could have taken place without Mr Putin’s knowledge. He answered as
follows: 79
“I strongly believe that it couldn’t be done without Vladimir Putin’s knowledge,
because of one of the key traditions of the KGB. Any general, including Mr Ivanov
or any other FSB general, before issuing an order to assassinate Sasha or anybody
else in Russia or outside Russia, would think about covering his back just in case.
This is a KGB rule number one, cover your back, and covering your back is to get
approval from your superior, especially in Russia where they say about developing
this structure, straight line structure of leadership, where the boss – there is just
one single boss who makes all the important decisions. So I rule out basically the
possibility that a decision to assassinate Sasha or anybody else outside of Russia
would have been made without approval of the top authority of Russia, which is
Vladimir Putin.”
9.204 Mr Goldfarb’s evidence touched on the same issue. 80 He said that, if it was assumed
(as I have now found) that Mr Litvinenko was poisoned by Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun,
and (as I have also now found) that the operation was sponsored by a Russian State
organisation, “then the question narrows down [to] who in the state structures could
authorise that”. Mr Goldfarb stated that he regarded it as an “inevitable conclusion”
that, “this can be no one else than Mr Putin”. He explained the reasoning that led him
to this conclusion in some detail, which I will set out below:
“One is it was already mentioned by Yuri Shvets here that traditionally this sort of
active measures from the Soviet times are authorised at the highest political level,
that’s number one.
Number two is that polonium 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. So it brings us to the level above the hierarchy
of the FSB.
79
Shvets 24/116-117
80
Goldfarb 26/130-133; 27/116-120
241