Chapter 12: Russian State responsibility – involvement of Nikolai Patrushev and President Vladimir Putin
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.
242Number 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.
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
Mr Patrushev, who was at that time the head of the FSB, could not single-handedly order Mr Kiriyenkio, who was the head of atomic energy, to give him polonium just like that. He … would have needed – that's probably a question to an expert, but that's my guess in any case.
¶So that's number two.
Number three is that nobody in the Russian hierarchy would initiate such an operation without covering his back, as Mr Shvets said … not only for general reasons, but for specific reasons that everybody knows in Russia, about a long history of relationship with Mr Putin, Mr Berezovsky and Mr Litvinenko. It's personal.
¶…
Nobody in his right mind, knowing how things run there, would authorise such an operation when one could be sure that Mr Putin would take a very close look at it after the fact. It's not just an unauthorised operation, but it would be an unauthorised operation specifically involving an issue which is very close personally to Mr Putin. … I once said somewhere that it's a crime of passion, not only the crime of politics, it's a crime of passion.
And finally, in one of the Wikileaks cable[s], the American official, by the name of Daniel Fried, said that knowing Mr Putin's attention to detail, we, meaning the US administration, doubt that this could have happened without Mr Putin's knowledge; and to confirm that, I refer to the statement which was aired on Russian TV three days ago, where there was a film on Russian TV featuring Putin, a long interview, about him telling how they annex Crimea, and Putin said to the presenter: 'the reason why it worked so smoothly was because I personally micromanaged the whole operation.'
The moment you delegate this to the structures, the structures screw up, essentially, that's what he said. So in important situations like this, only [I] can make sure that everything is done perfectly, and this is kind of in the same vein as Daniel Fried said, that knowing Putin's attention to detail, he must have micromanaged it."
¶9.205 In formal court proceedings, opinions such as those that were set out above from
Mr Shvets and Mr Goldfarb would not be admissible as evidence because Mr Shvets and Mr Goldfarb are not independent expert witnesses. In this Inquiry, however, I am not bound by the strict procedural rules that apply in court proceedings, and I do not go so far as to reject these opinions as without value. That said, I must clearly approach what they have said with some care. Although both men are knowledgeable in the field of Russian history and politics, Mr Horwell was right to observe81 that neither could (nor, no doubt, would) claim to be impartial observers of the events surrounding Mr Litvinenko's death.
¶9.206 But importantly, the evidence of Mr Shvets and Mr Goldfarb does not stand alone. I
also received evidence on these issues from Professor Service, who is an independent expert witness.
¶9.207 I should make clear that Professor Service was not instructed to address in his report
243the core issues relating to the attribution of responsibility for Mr Litvinenko's death. But parts of both his written evidence, and in particular his oral evidence, did touch on
¶Part 9 | Chapters 1 to 12 | Who directed the killing?
the question of the likely involvement of Mr Patrushev and Mr Putin on the hypothesis that Mr Litvinenko was killed in an operation sponsored by the FSB.
¶9.208 Professor Service said during his oral evidence that if Mr Litvinenko had been killed
by the FSB, it was "inconceivable" that Mr Patrushev would not have had knowledge (and I take him to mean advance knowledge) of the operation.82 This evidence was in line with the view that Professor Service had expressed in his report that, despite the lack of irrefutable evidence, he found it hard to believe that Mr Patrushev had not been, "somehow involved in some of the other killings under consideration in my report"83 Marina Litvinenko 3/114 INQ019473; Scaramella 27/60-73 Reilly 10/29-30 Mascall 9/101 INQ019146 (page 27 paragraph 85) – that is, the deaths of various of Mr Putin's opponents to which I have referred at paragraphs 9.129 – 9.155 above.
¶9.209 The question that logically follows is whether, if Mr Patrushev had advance knowledge
of an FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko, he shared that information with Mr Putin. On this issue, Professor Service was far more cautious.
¶9.210 Professor Service was confident that President Putin reserved oversight of security
policy to himself. He also drew attention to the close links between President Putin and Mr Patrushev, and to the latter's long service as head of the FSB between 1999 and 2008. "The conclusion must be", Professor Service stated: "that Putin generally endorsed what the agency got up to in the years through to 2006 and beyond and that Patrushev as its Director knew that he had his President's support in its operations."84 Marina Litvinenko 3/114-116 Marina Litvinenko written closing submissions, page 46 paragraph 142 Goldfarb 5/132; Attew 13/22; Tabunov 13/139-140 Mascall 9/109-111 INQ019146 (pages 26-27 paragraph 83)
¶9.211 Professor Service expressed the further view that he considered it to be very unlikely
that President Putin restricted himself to providing a general sanction to Mr Patrushev's broad line of action – he thought it likely, rather, that Mr Putin exercised, at the very least, some oversight of Mr Patrushev's activities.
¶9.212 But that simply begs the question of what level of oversight Mr Putin exercised over
the FSB. Professor Service readily accepted that he lacked the evidence to draw any firm conclusion on this issue. He described the shortfall in the evidence available to him regarding the working relationship between Mr Putin and Mr Patrushev in the following terms:85
"… there is no available evidence for how much initiative was left to Patrushev in the FSB. Did Patrushev secure Putin's permission for operations in advance? Or did he merely need sanction for a general operational strategy? And did the relationship between Putin and Patrushev undergo change in the course of their collaboration? These questions constitute an important nexus of known unknowns about Presidential power since Yeltsin stepped down from office."
¶9.213 Professor Service did draw attention in his report to one possible reason why
244Mr Patrushev might have concealed an FSB operation to assassinate Mr Litvinenko from Mr Putin, namely that the operation was part of a deliberate campaign by Kremlin insiders to weaken Mr Putin's power. Professor Service referred to this theory that had been advanced by some commentators, but he did not endorse it himself.86 I observe that it would also seem unlikely, given the duration and closeness of Mr Patrushev's ties to Mr Putin, that he would have been a party to such a plot in the first place.
¶The Litvinenko Inquiry
¶9.214 As I have indicated, Professor Service did not address the express question of
whether, if Mr Patrushev did order an FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko, it is likely that he would have sought President Putin's approval for such an operation. However, drawing on the logic of his analysis relating to other matters,87 it appears to me that Professor Service's view on this issue is that Mr Patrushev probably would have told President Putin about such an operation, but that the evidence available to him in relation to this issue is so lacking that he regards the answer to be, at least at present, unprovable.
¶9.215 Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me, I find that the FSB
245operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin.