Is Russia Back In The Assassination Business?

John R. Schindler, Observer: The Return of Wetwork: KGB Goons Radiated a Former Associate in London

Putin's Kremlin employs assassination abroad as state policy in a manner not seen in Moscow since Stalin

This week’s announcement by a British court that Russian spies murdered Alexander Litvinenko in London in November 2006, made global headlines. Particularly because the massive report, based on a multi-year investigation, concluded that the Kremlin must have approved the assassination at the highest levels, “probably” including President Vladimir Putin himself.

This is a big story, given the sensational manner of Litvinenko’s death, notwithstanding that the complicity of Russian officialdom in the murder has been obvious for years, while the likelihood that Mr. Putin green-lighted the hit could be news only to those unacquainted with how his regime actually works.

The essential facts of the case were known almost from the outset.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: When details on the murder of Alexander Litvinenko came out .... I said to myself that this had to be personal. This was not a "clean-cut bang you are now dead" sort of operation .... this assassination was done to maximize the pain for the target. It was also done to bring maximum pain to the family who had to watch him suffer and die, and to also send a clear signal to everyone else. But on the question .... did the order to kill him come from Putin .... on that I am not sure. In Putin's eyes Alexander Litvinenko was a small fish who defected to the West .... he was not important enough to be ordered killed. The blow-back and consequences would also make such an operation a no-go .... it was simply not worth having him dead .... and not in such an obvious and public way. But Alexander Litvinenko was murdered .... and a British court has ruled that the Kremlin ordered his killing. My guess is that it is one of Alexander Litvinenko's former bosses/colleagues who sanction the assassination .... they were embarrassed by the defection, and doubly so when he began to accuse Putin of corruption and even paedophilia. Putin .... being ex-KGB .... heard about it later ... and treated it as an internal-KGB affair .... distancing himself from it as far as possible, but probably satisfied inside that this KGB defector was taken out in such a fashion. I could of course be completely wrong .... that Putin ordered the hit directly, and left it at that. But I do know one thing .... after Putin and his generation is gone, the truth about this murder from Moscow's side will be known .... but it will be small comfort to Alexander Litvinenko's surviving son.

On a side note .... this has happened before .... Stalin ordered that assassination of Leon Trotsky .... and that order went out because it was personal, and it had to done publicly.

Hat Tip to James for the above Observer link.