Alexander Litvinenko's photo as a target in a shooting gallery.
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“Litvinenko assured me that the information was unique”
The investigation department at the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia initiated on June 15th a criminal case for espionage on the basis of Andrei Lugovoi’s statement that Alexander Litvinenko was an agent of British intelligence MI6 and traded confidential information about Russian politicians and businessmen. Last week, Evgeny Limarev, a Russian emigrant living in France, handed over to Kommersant Vlast’s editorial office the documents which he claims Litvinenko was trying to sell with his help. Limarev told Vlast’s reporter Alek Akhundov that Andrei Lugovoi was mixed in that project as well.
Evgeny Limarev was born in 1965 in a diplomat’s family. He graduated from the Institute for Asian and African Studies in Moscow in 1988, having acquired two professions: historian-Orientalist and interpreter-personal assistant. Limarev is fluent in English, French, Persian, and Dari. Between 1988 and 1991, he worked as interpreter and foreign languages professor in Balashikha-2, a separate training center of the USSR’s First Headquarters. As Limarev said, he mainly dealt with Vympel unit. Then he took special-training courses and entered the First Headquarters’ Krasnoznamenny Institute. Since 1991, he did business, and worked in Agropromservis and Nordex companies in Moscow. In 1993, Limarev and his family immigrated to Genève, after “mafia from Moscow’s outskirts put the squeeze on him”, as he said. In Switzerland, he did business related to Russia and Moldova. Limarev moved to France in late 1999, where he registered as an independent advisor on former Soviet states’ politics and security.
Russian press described Limarev as “Berezovsky’s man” who supported RusGlobus website (it does not function now) financed by Berezovsky. Same sources claimed that Limarev took part in Gennady Seleznev’s campaign project in the late 1990s. Those sources also mentioned criminal cases for which Limarev was allegedly wanted. Meanwhile, Limarev gave the following comments: “I have never been mixed in any criminal cases anywhere, I have never been wanted by Interpol, and I have never had any difficulties with any international law-enforcement bodies.”
Limarev was repeatedly mentioned in connection to Alexander Litvinenko’s poisoning. He was called one of the key witnesses in Scotland Yard’s investigation. Limarev collaborated with Mario Scaramella of Italy, with whom Litvinenko met on November 1, 2006, in Itsu bar in London. At that meeting, the Italian passed a letter to Litvinenko. The letter had been received from a “source in Russia”. Scaramella later said that is was Limarev who gave the letter to him. The letter claimed that, in particular, Honor and Dignity union of veterans of Russian special services might have been linked to the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and to the liquidation of Russian opposition members living abroad, Litvinenko among them.
Andrei Lugovoi said in early June that Litvinenko collaborated with British companies dealing with security issues, and passed analytic materials about Russian companies to them. Lugovoi said that he and Litvinenko sold “analytic materials of various spheres of economy” to RISC Management company. “The payment for these materials was transferred to us right away, and Litvinenko received 20 percent of the sum in cash,” said Lugovoi. Raven International Security Consulting (RISC) Management was founded on the basis of ISC Global detective agency, which was part of Group MENATEP. RISC Management estimates risks, carries out commercial intelligence, and secures business safety. Traces of polonium-210 were discovered in the company’s London headquarters after Litvinenko’s death. According to Scotland Yard, Litvinenko visited the headquarters shortly before his poisoning, and Lugovoi visited it as well.
“Sasha kept company with hell-knows-who”
“What were the circumstances and the purpose of Alexander Litvinenko’s passing these documents to you?”
“In May 2006, I received a CD with these documents mailed to me by Sasha [Alexander Litvinenko]. He chose not to send the documents via the Internet, but acted in the best spy traditions: he recorded them onto a CD with a cover of a classic English movie. I did not find anything of interest to my Western clients in the received reviews and analysis of Russian politics and business, and I frankly said it to Sasha. I told him that bullshit can’t be sold at the price he asked for: ˆ10,000 for each package, including ˆ2,000 of rake-off for himself; it was just like Lugovoi described it recently. However, Litvinenko assured me that the information was unique and was prepared by Russian special services for the Kremlin’s top officials. Meanwhile, I supposed the documents might have been fudged up in a security agency close to Berezovsky, or in Moscow, or by a PR expert like Stanislav Belkovsky, and I said directly that I can figure out who exactly did it, because I have sources among Berezovsky’s associates in London and in Moscow. Sasha was extremely displeased by that.
Shortly after, I learned from my sources that Sasha had definitely received the documents from Lugovoi. I also learned that Litvinenko closely collaborates with those British companies which Lugovoi recently characterized as spy companies, including RISC Management. Lugovoi now claims that Sasha and his British ‘colleagues’ were allegedly trying to mire him in a dirty business, first offering it to him, and then forcing him to work for them, with the ultimate goal to enroll him. The version looks extremely questionable. It’s clear for me that Lugovoi and his shadow partners in Russia for looking for ways to approach Sasha.”
“Had Litvinenko addressed you with similar offers ever before?”
“Yes, he had. However, Sasha knew absolutely well since 2005 that I already have no illusions about the prospects of Boris Berezovsky’s political activity, -- just like Sasha himself, as he said, since 2006. I frequently talked to Berezovsky himself and to his nearest associates, Alex Goldfarb and Yuri Felshtinsky. Once, in April 2004, Sasha offered to me to investigate the activities of a certain Igor Khodorkovsky [a Russian businessman who made a fortune by producing gambling machines; he has lived in Switzerland since 2000.—Vlast], and fervently assured me that a large budget was promised to him for that project. I made sure that my sources have access to that case and I agreed, but Sasha suddenly laid low and never told me why.
In late May, I found out that he was investigating Igor Khodorkovsky’s activities together with Andrei Lugovoi. Apparently, one of Lugovoi’s security agencies was responsible for the safety of Igor Khodorkovsky’s business in Russia. At a certain moment, it seemed to me that Sasha and Lugovoi began blackmailing the businessman. I decided then that Sasha had completely lost his mind, because he was doing dangerous business with such ambiguous people.”
“When did you first hear of Andrei Lugovoi?”
“I first heard about him by accident, many years ago. Alexander (I prefer not to give his last name), chief of my safety guards, knew Lugovoi in Moscow in the mid-1990s. Several years ago, Alexander suddenly died of a strange kind of lung edema. It is more likely that it was a murder, linked to Russian security agencies’ attack on me in 1999. So, he told me that he had served together with Lugovoi in the KGB’s 9th department for several years. Back then, Lugovoi’s name was well-known among security experts, because he had already been in the security business for some years. So, Alexander criticized Lugovoi and his methods. Evidently, Lugovoi worked for Berezovsky’s group and maintained close contact with special services at the same time, and beyond the framework of his new duties as well. The fact that Lugovoi, after leaving jail, resumed working for Berezovsky and was among his close associates, characterizes Berezovsky and Litvinenko as people with vague knowledge of what security is.”
“What did Litvinenko say about Lugovoi?”
“Talking to me, Sasha might have mentioned him once, in passing. Another circumstance seems strange to me, just like to Lugovoi. Lugovoi was first called a poisoner only after Sasha slipped into coma in mid-November. Back then, press also started mentioning me, either due to Scaramella or to his boss, Senator Guzzanti [Paolo Guzzanti, leader of Forza Italia! faction in the Italian parliament.—Vlast], or to Litvinenko, or to Berezovsky’s associates. It has not become clear so far, and no one wants to explain who and why needed to mire me into that polonium mass-media ecstasy. Yet, the fact that Guzzanti and turncoats Gordievsky [Oleg Gordievsky, former KGB officer.—Vlast] and Volodarsky [Boris Volodarsky, expert on the history of Russian special services.—Vlast] are telling everyone in London that I am a KGB agent, a participant of a ‘covering operation’ for liquidating Litvinenko, and that I allured Scaramella to London to meet Sasha so as to give everyone the false trace of poisoners from the KGB!”
“What do you think is Scaramella’s role in the story?”
“It is not quite clear. On the one hand, he was linked to Sasha. On the other hand, he carried out bosh survey concerning KGB traces in Italy since the Soviet times. Moreover, he was interested in such Russian organizations as the SMC [the State Missile Center in Miass. Russian mass media said in early June that the Center’s management got suspected of an attempt to smuggle secret documents. The information did not receive confirmation.—Vlast]. Mario asked me to make inquiries about the SMC top officials, with whom he allegedly collaborated, and gave me their personal details printed on a SMC letterhead paper.
Besides, Sasha kept company with hell-knows-who. Since 2005, he insistently offered to me for instance to collaborate with the International Anti-Terrorism Union (IAU) Ukrainian public organization. He said that he and Boris closely cooperate with the IAU concerning Ukraine and Russia. I have even met with a member of that organization, but it turned out later that it was an officer of Ukrainian special services, which nearly got me in trouble.
Later, I learned that one of IAU cofounders is the Russian Association of Veterans of Alfa anti-terrorism unit, which includes Sasha’s public enemies, for instance General Gennady Zaitsev, Alfa’s former commander. In his book FSB Blows Up Russia, Sasha accused him of protecting the FSB which either underwent training or nearly blew up houses in Ryazan in 1999, while Zaitsev and his colleagues from the base in Balashikha-2 in response cursed Litvinenko as much as they could. By the way, Lugovoi’s security holding Ninth Wave is also a member of the Association. Afterwards, Mario also asked me what the IAU is and whether he can contact them. Apparently, he learned about the IAU from Litvinenko.”
“Liquidating Litvinenko is a multi-goal special operation”
“What do you think of Litvinenko’s murder? Do you have your own version?”
“I’m sure the traces of that crime lead to Russia. Yet, it is very strange why the British investigators excluded any mentioning of polonium-210 in the charges to Lugovoi. Officially, there was not a single statement that Sasha was poisoned particularly by Russian polonium which only a special state agency can produce and transform into poison. Apparently, the British investigators are trying to boil that story down to common crime, afraid to politicize it and even to mention that Russia is anyway mixed in it. It is an absolutely stalemate case. The truth about Litvinenko’s poisoning will not come out with the current political regime in Russia and with its successors.
I believe that nobody among top officials gave order to liquidate Sasha, nobody signed his name on it. The crime was organized and carried out at a clan level, like, for instance, in the case with a similar poisoning of Yuri Shchekochikhin (I collaborated with him) and with Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. Who organized and who implemented the crimes? It was done by security officials close to Putin, who strive for supreme power or at least try to preserve Putin in presidency. I personally knew them well before April 1999, and since then I study them professionally. It seems to me the most likely political orderer of the liquidation is Sergei Ivanov, the organizers are members of one of the strongest clans in the FSB and the SVR (foreign intelligence service), and the perpetrators are former special-task officers of these organizations. This way, no one will ever prove it was the state’s order.”
“What is the motive?”
“They, who are nostalgic for the grandeur of the Soviet Empire, need to fence Putin from the West and oppositionary democrats in Russia, so as to strengthen their totalitarian positions. The murder’s general purpose is to seed fear among the opposition and other ‘enemies of the nation’, and to announce for the entire world: we are back, we are strong, and we have access even to polonium; who isn’t with us, he will die a terrible death; we’ll get anyone anywhere. The organizers considered at least two variants: if polonium is not discovered, Litvinenko’s painful death, just like Shchekochikhin’s, will scare the necessary people. If polonium is discovered, even more people will get scared, understanding that only state agencies have access to polonium.”
“Do you think that Andrei Lugovoi was the perpetrator?”
“Apparently, Lugovoi is linked to the case. Yet, it is questionable whether he actively participated in the operation and moreover added polonium into Sasha’s tea. Evidently, the British investigators served charges to Lugovoi because the time was running out, also due to the approaching leave of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Meanwhile, they gathered more evidence that Lugovoi, and not Kovtun or someone else, is linked to the poisoning. There is at least one extra perpetrator: someone Valuev is under suspicion. The name is mentioned in the end of the transcript of Berezovsky’s interrogation by an investigator of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office in London [it was published in May on www.kommersant.ru.—Vlast]. So, Scotland Yard is strongly interested in that person while investigating the Litvinenko case.”
“Why was it only now that Lugovoi said that Litvinenko and Berezovsky worked for MI6?”
“Liquidating Litvinenko is a multi-goal special operation carried out by professionals. One of its goals is to completely compromise Berezovsky, primarily in the West. So, now it kind of turned out that hell-knows-who is among his associates, from Litvinenko to Lugovoi, and that they deal with grey-and-black business and politics, and even espionage, and that sort of thing. By the way, Lugovoi’s statement that Goldfarb traded political asylums is nonsense. It is enough to know Alex at least a little, to be sure that he is experienced, careful, and definitely wouldn’t do it. On the contrary, it looks quite like truth that Litvinenko could have mentioned such possibility and wished to earn this way.
Apparently, Lugovoi is forced to take an ultimate public position after he had received charges from London. So, he took that position together with the murder’s organizers, and they’ll cook up even more. It is clear that security officials and now all Russia’s state agencies stand behind Lugovoi. I just wonder when he joined the operation against Litvinenko and Berezovsky, and whether he did it voluntarily or not.
Certainly, from experts’ point of view, Lugovoi’s statements that his counterpart worked for British intelligence look ridiculous. No doubt, Berezovsky and Litvinenko, having moved to England, became the extreme risk factors, for the entire country and for special services in particular, due to their dark past in Russia, their political declarations against the Kremlin, and their anti-Putin activities. Berezovsky is surrounded by a host of first-class lawyers. British law-enforcers can’t reach him, and special services have to stay away from him, to avoid huge scandals. There is no chance they could have enrolled such unpredictable individuals: British special services prefer quietness and data from original sources, while neither Berezovsky nor Litvinenko remained such since long ago. Certainly, it is nonsense that British intelligence could have decided to liquidate Litvinenko, especially by polonium and on their country’s territory. These horror fairy tales are good only for frightened Russia.
Naturally, the British services watched Berezovsky’s and Litvinenko’s activities. They might have gathered information from them and met their contacts. Yet, there can be no collaboration and absolutely no enrollment of individuals like Lugovoi through Litvinenko and later joint work with him, at all. I think it was absolutely the opposite way: the liquidation organizers suggested that Lugovoi should offer his services for gathering information in Russia; Lugovoi supplied all sorts of bullshit, until Sasha’s murder.”
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Political Show-Business Becomes One Show Richer
Extracts of the analytic papers which, according to Evgeny Limarev, Alexander Litvinenko was trying to sell in May 2006 (please see the documents’ full text on www.kommersant.ru/articles/2007/litvinenko.html).
System of Moscow clubs. Elite, lobbyists, think-tanks [the document lists 29 closed-door clubs in Moscow, both acting and those which no longer exist.— Vlast].
Clubs in Russia, popular in the 1990s, have gradually disappeared from the establishment’s official biographies. Nonetheless, these clubs remain the heart of pressure groups’ interests. They have transformed into intercommunication platforms, ‘intellectual exchanges’, where one can acquire information or acquaintances, and present oneself or one’s services…
Club 2015
Officially, Club 2015 was registered in August 1999 as a non-profit partnership of managers and entrepreneurs… At the club’s first meeting in Troika-Dialog company’s headquarters in September 1999, it failed to make any decisions. The meeting gathered 10 people. They understood it was time to act together, but no one knew what to start with. The second meeting took place a week later. Vorobiev [Sergei Vorobiev, the club’s chairman and one of the founders of Ward Howell International company.— Vlast] suggested writing ‘Scenarios for Russia’. The date in the club’s name had a special meaning. The chairman explained that the average age of the club’s members was 35. So, they would reach 50 in 2015. That is, a further prognosis would deprive the members of their personal interest.
The members began implementing the project at their own expense. In early 2002, they published the book Scenarios for Russia in the edition of 90,000 copies. Literary versions of the three basic scenarios were written by Alexander Kabakov, Alexander Gelman, and Denis Dragunsky. Vladimir Preobrazhensky, Alexander Privalov, and the analytic group of Expert magazine wrote the expert-analytical scenario drafts. By the way, Expert was partially considered the club’s chief media resource. Several ‘original’ scenarios, created at scenario seminars by the participants themselves, were also published in the book.
As the Club 2015 members said, they were united by common values, and not vested interests. Thus, they ‘promoted the values of productive culture’. The members meant responsibility, trust, and mutuality under that definition. The members call themselves “a community of professional managers working for the sake of Russia’s future”. They also claim their project is devoid of a definite political targeting, and that is why it was not ordered by a specific political party or movement, and is not linked to the name of a specific politician…
Club 2015 unites 36 people. Among the members are Troika-Dialog’s president Ruben Vardanyan, IBS Group’s president Anatoly Karachinsky, Vympelkom’s vice president Vladimir Preobrazhensky, McKinsey & Company’s partner Alexei Reznikovich, head of Reemtsma company’s Russian representation Andrei Kravets, Mars company’s president Alexander Izosimov, Transtelekom’s president Konstantin Shapovalenko, Aeroflot’s first deputy director general Alexander Zurabov, Millicom International Cellular’s president and CEO Stanislav Shekshnya, Microsoft-Russia head Olga Dergunova, State Duma deputy Irina Hakamada, and others. The members pay quite high fees, and these funds are used for implementing the club’s projects, as it is declared…
Shift of the balance of forces in power structures by March 15, 2006
Summary of subjects
…Political show-business became richer by one more speech of B. Berezovsky, delivered right before Hostage, a book by A. Smolensky and E. Krasnyansky was published. There was an opinion the book aimed at discrediting the Russian authorities. All these factors were to shake the situation inside the Kremlin.
Strengthening of S. Ivanov’s positions still gives evidence that he is the main ‘successor’ (chief state resources were summoned to rehabilitate him).
At the same time, the situation around I. Sechin and his associates -- M. Fradkov (health), S. Sobyanin (new powers), B. Gryzlov (situation in the United Russia party) – aggravated. The group entered direct confrontation with V. Surkov (taking away powers and forcing him out of United Russia) and A. Kudrin--A. Chubais (distributing the stabilization fund).
The situation inside United Russia displays growing conflict between the main pressure groups in the Kremlin, but it has not so far affected the principle of pre-election lists formation (old principle remains in force).
Reform in M. Fradkov’s cabinet and the president’s administration is the fruit of the pressure groups’ final struggle for positions around the Russian president on the eve of the decisive year of 2007. The reform moved forth security officials V. Ivanov [Viktor Ivanov, presidential assistant.— Vlast] and N. Patrushev…
There are grounds to suppose that V. Putin might head the ‘energy alliance’ of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan after 2008. It will probably be a top-rank position, supervising and really controlling the main branches of Russia’s energy sector, including Gazprom, Sibneft, Rosneft, Yuganskneftegaz, and other holdings. That geopolitical alliance is in a pre-project stage now. However, there already are premises for its creation. Taken separately, the above-mentioned countries will never have such energy power as they would acquire by uniting. It has become clear that these countries’ uncoordinated actions harm their economies quite badly. If they reach agreement, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan will be able to dictate their conditions not only to their energy-dependent countries, but also to the EU, and moreover to EnergoNATO which is being created by East-European states (on Poland’s initiative). So, the Kremlin’s policy on Palestine and Iran (the latter has richest oil-and-gas deposits) should definitely play its role… Boris Berezovsky has committed another ‘political suicide’, ritually and technologically, by admitting recently that he allegedly prepares a coup d'etat in Russia. Consequently, an opinion appeared that his intuition failed him once again… Apparently, the best way to silence Berezovsky is to wait calmly and patiently till he runs out of money. Judging by the approaching sale of Kommersant Publishing House to Badri Patarkatsishvili, his funds are running out.
All the Article in Russian as of June 25, 2007
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