The final words of poisoned Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko took on a chilling resonance today after his death last night.

In an interview with The Times just hours before the former Russian intelligence officer slipped into unconsciousness, Mr Litvinenko whispered: “The bastards got me, but they won’t get everybody.”

The 43-year-old was described as too weak to move his limbs and visibly in great pain as he spoke on Tuesday, the last occasion he was properly able to communicate with his friend, filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov.

He told his friend that he knew his battle against a mystery poison may fail, but the campaign for truth would go on with or without him.

“I want to survive just to show them,” he said.

He remained defiant to the last in his battle against President Putin and the Russian security services, even managing a joke at his own expense by suggesting his poisoning was proof the Kremlin was targeting the right people.

He continued: “This is what it takes to prove one has been telling the truth.”

Mr Nekrasov described the extraordinary scenes in the hospital, where one ward looked “like a scene from the Godfather”.

All visitors were screened by armed police before being ushered into the darkened intensive care room where Litvinenko lay in excruciating pain in the days before his death.

Mr Nekrasov told The Times: “Sasha (Litvinenko) was a good looking, physically strong and courageous man, but the figure who greeted me looked like a survivor from the Nazi concentration camps.

“We discussed the likelihood of another killing. Sasha warned me not to go back to Russia because it was too dangerous.

“Very sadly he turned out to be the next victim, attacked in the perceived safety of Central London.”

Looks like the KGB is running rather well these days.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Putin is a sort of scary guy in some ways. He's got a bit of that nerves of steel, socio-pathic kind of look about him. That scene where he kissed the boys tummy was a bit odd, like he knew he was untouchable.

OTOH, I've seen footage of some remarkable leadership skills. That time their sub sank in relatively shallow water, killing all aboard -- I saw video of him meeting with family members at the site and his comportment was pretty solid. Either he's a hell of an actor or he really managed to feel the pain of some of those Russian mothers.

Wonder if we'll ever know much of the truth about this episode.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

You can take the girl out of the trailer park but you will never take the trailer out of her. Russia's political landscape has been murderous and corrupt since the beginning of time. There is a documentary on History International about Russian real estate and business all but 8 of the Russian business people they started the doc with were dead when they finished the documentary and they started with 50. They say a new millionaire is being made in Russia everyday but two are murdered.

Dying Russian ex-spy implicated Putin

By TARIQ PANJA Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
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LONDON — A former Russian spy who died in an apparent poisoning signed a statement in the waning hours of his life blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin and accusing him of having "no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value," friends said Friday,

Putin's government strongly denied involvement, calling the allegation "nothing but nonsense."

Alexander Litvinenko's statement, read to reporters outside the hospital where he died late Thursday, addressed the Russian leader directly.

"You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilized men and women," Litvinenko said in a statement read by his friend Alex Goldfarb.

"You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life."

Goldfarb said Litvinenko had dictated the statement before he lost consciousness on Tuesday, and signed it in the presence of his wife, Marina.

"It's so silly and unbelievable that it's not worth comment," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Helsinki, Finland, where Putin is attending a summit with European Union leaders.

"Now the case will be investigated by relevant British services and we hope that those who are standing behind this case will be brought to justice," he added.

Litvinenko, a former KGB agent and critic of the Russian government, suffered heart failure late Thursday after days in intensive care, London's University College Hospital said. Doctors said the cause of his illness remained a mystery.

Friends said Litvinenko had been on a quest to uncover corruption in Russia's Federal Security Service, or FSB, and unmask the killers of another trenchant critic of the Putin's government, the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

"He was completely convinced it was the FSB. There was no doubt in his mind who it was," Andrei Nekrasov told The Associated Press.

Nekrasov, who spoke to Litvinenko just before he lost consciousness, said Litvinenko had told him: "The bastards got me, but they won't get everybody."

Litvinenko told police that he believed he had been poisoned on Nov. 1, while investigating the slaying of Politkovskaya. His hair fell out, his throat swelled and his immune and nervous systems were severely damaged.

Doctors treating him said they could not explain his rapid decline, and they discounted earlier theories that the 43-year-old father of three had been poisoned with the toxic metal thallium or a radioactive substance.

Dr. Geoff Bellingan, University College Hospital's director of critical care, acknowledged he had no clue as to the cause of death.

London's Metropolitan Police said anti-terrorist officers were investigating the matter as "an unexplained death."

"It was an excruciating death and he was taking it as a real man," Litvinenko's father, Walter, said Friday.

"This regime is a mortal danger to the world," he added, his voice choked with emotion.

Nekrasov said the former spy had begun to lose consciousness on Tuesday.

"It was a darkened room, and he would open his eyes now and again. We were encouraging him, telling him that he would survive," Nekrasov said.

"It was so heart-rending. His son was just in a state of shock. He didn't know what to make of it. The family just huddled in a corner of the hospital _ it was terrible to look at."

Nekrasov said Litvinenko believed he had been targeted by the Kremlin because he had threatened to uncover embarrassing facts.

"He had a mission to uncover what he felt were crimes his former colleagues had committed," Nekrasov said.

Litvinenko worked for the KGB and its successor, the FSB. In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill tycoon Boris Berezovsky and spent nine months in jail from 1999 on charges of abuse of office. He was later acquitted and in 2000 sought asylum in Britain, where Berezovsky is now also living in exile.

On the day he first felt ill, Litvinenko said he had two meetings, the first with an unnamed Russian and Andrei Lugovoy, an-KGB colleague and bodyguard to former Russian Prime Minster Yegor Gaidar.

Later, he dined with Italian security expert Mario Scaramella to discuss the October murder of Politkovskaya.

Scaramella said he showed Litvinenko an e-mail he received from a source naming Politkovskaya's killers, and naming other targets including Litvinenko and himself.

Putin seems to like the Russian glory days a bit too much.

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- Brian


1989 500SEL Euro
1966 250SE Cabriolet
1958 BMW Isetta 600

I remember a relative that was involved with the investigation of Gieorge Markov's death talking about this type of stuff in normal conversation--it was surreal. Eastern Europe is beautiful, but the mindset seems to have very little regard for human life.

Mental note:
When doing business in that region of the world only eat what the other guy eats.
Mental note 2:
Carry an Uzi!

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Wouldn't have done Markov any good--they ultimately concluded that someone walked up to him at a bustop and popped him in the leg with an ink pen, leaving a ball point ball bearing in his leg which contained a miniscule amount of ricin. Real James Bond type stuff. They had like 100 forensic paths and coroners review the case before they figured it out.

The latest from BBC news was that the polonium was administered as an aerosol.

I guess the message is don't screw with the Russians!

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

From what I've been reading that method would be way risky for the killer. Takes so little of the stuff to be deadly, how would the perp protect himself?

I've got no need to carry water for Putin, though I was hoping he might be a little better than most of the others in recent past. One theory that might have merit is that someone in the KGB other than Putin had something to be gained by offing the guy. I'm sure there are a few gazillion power struggles among that crowd that we're never going to know about.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Damfino. I doubt that the folks who devised and executed this assassination cared. The person who administered it could himself (or herself) have been a drone of some sort -- an expendable pawn. The KGB force people to perform acts that they wouldn't do voluntarily through kidnappings of loved ones, etc.

The KGB was every bit as depraved as the Gestapo. The fall of the USSR resulted in a name change for KGB. But that's happened many times in recent Russian history. The Czar's secret police were organizationally decapitated but the lower ranks were recruited into the party and kept their jobs with a name change and a different loyalty oath. Same thing happened in the change from Lenin to Stalin.

The boys and toys stay the same, the name plate changes.

You are incontrovertably correct as usual. The Tsarist Ohkrana simply became the Bolshy Cheka,The top "apparatchiks" were "liquidated"but the organisation rolled on as before only to really flourish under the stern and far-seeing discipline of Feliks Dhzerzhinski,under which many dissidents at home and abroad were effectively squelched,remember Ramon Mercader and the icepick in Trotsky's skull?in Mexico?

After Dhzerzhinski's death from natural causes,{I only say this since it is unusual}Stalin filled the top post with soulless trimmers he could control,thus the famous "show trials" and "purges"of the '30's which effectively deprived Russia of it's great military leaders who dared disagree with the man of steel,thus leaving the country ill prepared for the Hitler onslaught until Zhukov and others emerged at the 11th hour to bring order out of chaos.

The sociopathic Lavrentii Berya was Stalin's last and worst choice,having long been employed as and agent provocateur by the Cheka,it was he who "manufactured"witnesses for Stalin in the '30's to rid himself of loyal people who's sole fault was strong views and opinions which went unheeded,now what about this female General and the Rumsfeld signature letter she alludes to ordering torture at Abu Ghraib?????????????

Whoops, tangent alert. I think they made a mistake trying to pin the blame on Karpinsky. She was overseer of what, 15 prisons and they had private intel people doing interrogations at Abu Gharib that she had no control over?

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K