New development in the Litvinenko-case

Apparently the Brits now have not only a prime suspect, but also enough evidence to charge him. It would be nice to know who ordered the hit, but we shall not get that information from Lugovoy.

It shall be interesting to find out what’ll be the diplomatic consequenses of this event. If the Russian government cooperates and extradite Logovoy relatively quickly, they will quite likely want something in return. In a way this could be thought of as a litmus test: How seriously has the missile defence program, and the critique of Putin in Western medias (Chechnya, the pipeline-issues and Putin’s dictatorial behaviour in general) hurt the relationsship between Russia (read: Putin) and the West?

I believe that the decision to kill Litvinenko came from the top of FSB, if not from Putin himself. Very few others would have both access to polonium and would have a good reason to kill a former KGB-agent. This of course complicates the matter further: If Patrushev or some other high-flyer promised Lugovoy exemption from punishment, an extradition could easily turn out to be a very complicated thing not likely to happen anytime soon. The two most likely scenarios are 1) Logovoy will end up as a bargaining object for Russia, 2) he will go unpunished, because the Russian authorities “can’t find him”.

Update: “Russia’s” initial response: No extradition.