Thursday’s official British report into the polonium murder of dissident Alexander Litvinenko finds that Vladimir Putin “probably approved” the killing.
Along the way, in his inquiry on behalf of the British government, retired judge Robert Owen provides the closest thing to an official inquiry we’re likely to get into the 1999 apartment bombings that killed nearly 300 Russians and propelled Mr. Putin to the presidency.
Though strangely unmentioned in many press reports this week, Litvinenko’s own book, “Blowing Up Russia,” was cited by Mr. Owen as a key motive for his assassination. The book lays the blame for the attacks at the feet of Russia’s security services. Judge Owen not only calls the book a “product of careful research,” but goes out of his way to enumerate the murders, suspicious deaths and arrests of others who tried to investigate the bombings.
Indeed, only missing from his report, perhaps because he was investigating Litvinenko’s death, not the bombings, was this piquant fact: The bombings promptly halted after Russian security personnel were caught planting explosives in an apartment block in the city of Ryazan, in what Moscow later claimed was a training exercise.
PBS’s “Frontline,” in a profile of Mr. Putin last year, didn’t duck from the implications of Ryazan. Numerous tomes have been written, including one by the Hoover Institution’s John Dunlop, which the New York Review of Books said presented an “overwhelming case.” ...
Along the way, in his inquiry on behalf of the British government, retired judge Robert Owen provides the closest thing to an official inquiry we’re likely to get into the 1999 apartment bombings that killed nearly 300 Russians and propelled Mr. Putin to the presidency.
Though strangely unmentioned in many press reports this week, Litvinenko’s own book, “Blowing Up Russia,” was cited by Mr. Owen as a key motive for his assassination. The book lays the blame for the attacks at the feet of Russia’s security services. Judge Owen not only calls the book a “product of careful research,” but goes out of his way to enumerate the murders, suspicious deaths and arrests of others who tried to investigate the bombings.
Indeed, only missing from his report, perhaps because he was investigating Litvinenko’s death, not the bombings, was this piquant fact: The bombings promptly halted after Russian security personnel were caught planting explosives in an apartment block in the city of Ryazan, in what Moscow later claimed was a training exercise.
PBS’s “Frontline,” in a profile of Mr. Putin last year, didn’t duck from the implications of Ryazan. Numerous tomes have been written, including one by the Hoover Institution’s John Dunlop, which the New York Review of Books said presented an “overwhelming case.” ...
Is the West’s Putin Silence Over?
