RedHanded - Episode 231 - A Storm in a Teacup: The Murder of Alexander Litvinenko

Episode Date: February 3, 2022

If a man in his mid-forties crashed into your local hospital being violently sick and claiming to have been poisoned by the Russian State, you'd be forgiven for thinking he was just another drunk member of the public. However, what Alexander Litvinenko had ingested was a little bit stronger than anything available at your local pub. Pop on your ushankas and buy a first-class ticket to Moscow, it's time for round one of RedHanded vs The Kremlin. Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Contact us: Contact Sources: Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXOWK-Vj7_M&t=148s https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/58088#symptoms https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30929940 https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/world/europe/25spy.html https://time.com/5725041/uk-russian-assassins-heidi-blake/ https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/from-russia-with-blood-14-suspected-hits-on-british-soil https://time.com/5725041/uk-russian-assassins-heidi-blake/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43299598 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/22/annexing-crimea-putin-make-russia-great-again See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sruti.

I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed, where I was trying to think of something about the Red Scare, the Red Army. I should have thought that through better, but I didn't. Instead, I spent the last however many weeks, however many years, it feels like, drowning in Russian soup. Borscht. Borscht.

Which is also red. She's been a tiny baby with a neck pillow and a big bowl of borscht. And if you don't know what she's talking about, that's because you don't follow us on Instagram and you are a bad spooky bitch. But we forgive you because you're here now and that's all that matters. And we've got a hell of a few cases for you.

Yes, this is one of those ones that we thought was going to be reasonably straightforward. Yep. And now it's spiralled, not out of control, it's spiralled into a very controlled explosion of knowledge. Which is probably how the people at the heart of our show today would spin something that was completely out of control. So let's do it. Let's talk about it. On the 4th of November 2006,

a man complaining of unbearable stomach pain and constant vomiting was admitted to Barnett General Hospital in North London. The man, who spoke with a Russian accent, said that his name was Edwin Carter and that he believed he'd been poisoned by none other than Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia. Naturally, the staff at the hospital were not totally convinced. The man was incredibly sick, had whatever was wrong with him started to mess with his mind. But on Carter's insistence, the police were called. And when news reached the London Metropolitan Police,

they too found themselves sceptical of the story they were hearing. Carter claimed to be a former KGB colonel and he was insisting that the reason that he was in that hospital bed with his mouth throat and stomach covered in excruciating ulcers was because the Russian state had tried to assassinate him. It's not going to win you many friends in an A&E ward saying that you've been poisoned by the Russians. It's not going to get you to the top of the list I don't think. I think they think he's fucking wrecked. He's a very, very ill man. But they are like, he's crazy. Yeah, I think, I don't remember if I told you this. A few months ago, my friends were here from America.

And I was driving up Kingsland Road, the A10, quite early in the morning because I was on my way to the airport. And there were all of these police cars, like seven, eight police cars. And like, Dalston's like, it's a bit grittier than where I live, but like, it's not as bad as it used to be. So yeah, it's a busy road, but you wouldn't see eight police cars. There's loads of traffic, couldn't figure it out. So then I like get up to where the commotion is. And it's this man on the pavement screaming drugs.

I'm on drugs. I'm on drugs. I'm on drugs. And all of these people... I believe him. I mean, I think he's telling the truth. Oh dear. I mean, I think that probably what's going on in the hospital is something not too dissimilar in the minds of the hospital staff.

Which I imagine they deal with quite often. No one's believing him. Even the police are sceptical. Then Carter gives the Met officers a phone number to call and he tells them that the man who would answer the phone could explain everything. So the police called the mystery number and a man known to this day only as Martin agreed to come to the hospital. So you think you can Martin? Yes. Martin turned out to be an MI6 agent. So he can Martin very well.

He can Martin. He can Martin Hart. Just clarification, MI6, just in case you don't know, it's like the equivalent of the CIA. It's the top secret of the top secretest part of the intelligence services in Britain. Do you work for the Home Office? Top secret is. And Martin, when he turned up at the hospital, confirmed Carter's story that the man in the hospital bed

was indeed a former KGB officer now turned MI6 advisor. That'll shut him up, won't it? Yeah. If a bloke called Martin shows up, you're in trouble. Uh-huh. He also revealed that the sick man's name wasn't actually Edwin Carter. It was Alexander Litvinenko. I would argue that if you're going to choose a fake name, Edwin is going to draw some attention to you. Why not Edward? Good question. Maybe because he has a Russian accent still and they're

like, maybe this sounds more Russian? I don't know. I don't know if Edwin's a Russian name. I don't know. Maybe he was like, I'm posh. Don't worry about it. The case that was about to play out would be like nothing British law enforcement had ever seen. The story we're about to tell you, involving the fatal poisoning by a foreign government of a British citizen on British soil using one of the most toxic substances known to man is so unbelievable that you'd be forgiven for thinking that it's just not true. But as you'll discover over the course of the next two episodes, we will be spending together,

holding each other's hands together as a family, deep in our embrace, and also neck deep, in a world of Russian high drama, dangerous espionage, fraught geopolitical tension, and plot lines ripped straight out of the pages of an airport paperback on the Cold War, that what happened to Alexander Litvinenko was not only designed to be breathtakingly obvious and savage, but that it's also far from a one-off as far as Russian state assassinations on foreign soil go. But more on that later. For now, let's get back to Edwin, or as we are going

to call him from now on, Alexander. I'm really too dempht about what we should call him throughout the episode, because obviously his alias is Edwin Carter. His name when he's in the KGB is Alexander Litvinenko. But his actual name, and the name that his wife calls him in all the documentaries, is Sasha. Oh, for God's sake. I know. At least she's not got a hope. So I've gone with Alexander.

I think that's the right thing to do. But I approve this message. Excellent. Though I have to admit, I really like the name Sasha. I think it's a really cute name. Do you really? I didn't think about it before. I think it's a really cute name. I think I just really like, like I've talked about before, I like boys' names for girls

and maybe Sasha sounds like kind of a girl's name and I think it's cute for a boy. Yeah. Anyway, moving on. Back to Alexander, like we said. He was deteriorating day by day. The doctors who were caring for him described it as if it were like watching a terminally ill cancer patient declining in days rather than in months. His blood count had fallen off a cliff, all of the

hair on his body had fallen out, and the ulcers in his mouth and throat were getting worse and worse. After two days at the Barnet Hospital, Alexander was eventually transferred to University College Hospital. But still, the doctors didn't know what had poisoned him. They suspected that it was possibly some sort of heavy metal, like thallium. But all of the test results kept coming back negative. As doctors raced to find out what they were dealing with, Scotland Yard and the London Metropolitan Police were racing to get answers too. It didn't look good for Litvinenko.

I think the doctors had told the police by this point, the prognosis is not good here. So they know if they have any chance of catching whoever's done this, extracting any information, they need to get him to talk to them as much as he can before he dies. And they believe him now because of Martin. Uh-huh. And luckily for them, Alexander Litvinenko was very much on the same page. For the next three days, he fought through the excruciating pain that he was in to spend every waking minute talking to the police. Alexander would sometimes even slip in

and out of consciousness, but he was absolutely determined to tell the authorities everything he could to help them catch whoever had done this to him, not just for justice, but also to protect his wife Marina and their son Anatoly. Alexander was born near Chechnya in 1962. At a young age, he was recruited into the Soviet army, and in 1987, he joined the KGB, where he spent 11 years working as an officer. After a decade within the institution, Alexander was promoted to head of a top-secret department within what was now called the FSB, which is still the KGB, just with a different hat on. This department was apparently tasked with the assassination

of political troublemakers. So if you are scratching your head at all of these letters I'm throwing at your face, don't worry, we're going to explain. KGB slash FSB, this is what the situation is slash was, will be forever and always the kgb was the main security agency for the soviet union and during its time it had a pretty wide remit covering everything from foreign intelligence and domestic security to protecting the country's political leadership and of course general surveillance of the population which is like one of the most sinister things it just like casually is thrown in there just general surveillance of the population. Which is like one of the most sinister things. It just like casually is thrown in there. Just general surveillance of the population. Having a look.

Just keeping an eye out. Hide your kids, hide your wife, because I'm looking through the window. And you can't hide them well enough because I'm under your bed. I have pee pee holes everywhere. Pee pee holes? It's infamous KGB slang. A pee pee hole is something else. Peep holes. I have peep holes, KGB slang. A pee-pee hole is something else. Peep holes.

I have peep holes, KGB peep holes everywhere. And I remember when we did the Gareth Williams case, the spy in the bag case. Many moons. Many moons ago. He will come up later today. Do not worry. We are self-referencing on this show, if nothing else.

I remember that my phone would constantly stop working when we were doing the research on that episode. And I was like, hmm, is it because GCHQ is hacking into my phone to somehow sabotage me? Or do I need a new phone? Or do I need a new phone because I keep getting drunk and throwing it on the floor? It could have been either.

We don't know. But what I do have to say is the other day, in the depths of my Russian mind-melting, I went outside to go to a physio appointment for my ankle. There was a car parked outside our WeWork, and the license plate was FSB. And I took a picture of it just to prove that she did. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent

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They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime,

The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So the KGB, with their pee-pee holes or not, collapsed allegedly in 1991, along with the entirety of the Soviet Union.

But it was replaced, but a few years later, by the FSB, which is almost exactly the same thing. In 1997, Alexander, remember he is the top dog at the secret department that kills... Yeah, the tippity-toppity of the secretist. Mm-hmm, that kill political troublemakers. King of the pee-pee holes. He absolutely is at this point. And he was told to kill a man named Boris Berezowski, who was then President Boris Yeltsin's top advisor.

I remember Yeltsin. Oh yeah, Yeltsin. Yeltsin. Harmless little Yeltsin. Just loved to drink Yeltsin. But Alexander refused. That's not what they want you to do. That's not what they want to hear. No, I would imagine as an officer in the FSB, you don't really get much say in what you do and what you don't. No, they did not like that. Because as soon as Alexander refused to kill Boris, the FSB quickly opened a case against him. And the reason that it seems Alexander refused to kill Boris is because in the mid-90s, there had been another attempt to kill Berezowski,

with a car bomb. Hardly subtle. They blew up his fucking car. They killed his driver, but he survives. And after this, Boris and Alexander actually became really good friends. And Alexander almost became like Boris Berezarski's like casual bodyguard, which is an odd dynamic. So once the FSB opened a case against him, Alexander decided to reveal the plot publicly. The plot to kill Berezarski. I know. Why? Wincing. There's wincing happening. There was wincing Berezowski. I know. Why? Wincing. There's wincing happening. There was wincing during the research and I'm like, I know, I get it.

Like, dissent, stand up to them, but I'm also like, maybe just be quiet. Maybe just move to Bermuda. Maybe just leave. Maybe don't be in the FSB and do anything else. But that isn't what happens. He's a man of greater substance than I. We're going to go on to talk about just how substantive he is.

In November 1998, Alexander Litvinenko and three other whistleblowers held a press conference in Moscow to expose the rampant corruption within the FSB and the Russian government. Again, substantive, substantial, substance. And a few of the men, I actually showed Hannah this while I was doing the research, a few of the men during this press conference wore like really dark sunglasses.

One guy's even wearing a balaclava over his head. But I suspect that it did little to hide their true identities with all those pee-pee holes. With all their pee-pee holes. And also I feel like if you are an internal employee of the FSB, some acrylic wool is not going to save you. Yes, I can't imagine that the newly then appointed head of the FSB and now very infamous Vladimir Putin

was out there watching that press conference being like, I just don't know who they are. Boris, have you seen this? Who is he? He's got a hat on and some sunglasses. And that man with the balaclava, well, is he even a man? Who is he? Who or what? Who or what are these people who are exposing all of our corruption secrets? After this press conference, again, Alexander Litvinenko, there are so many instances where you're like, stop it, but also go you. So like I said, at this point, Vladimir Putin

had just been appointed the head of the FSB. So people didn't know him. They didn't know his, what kind of a leader he was going to be. And Alexander Litvinenko actually approached Vladimir Putin and said, there's a lot of corruption going on. People are killing their political enemies, not in the greater good of the state, but just for their own personal gain, etc. you need to clean house and when he went and told some other people that he had you know he was like nothing to worry about guys i've spoken to the head of the fsb vladimir putin have you heard of him he told me everything's gonna be fine he actually even asked for my number and they laughed at him and

he didn't understand why and they were like vladimir putin yeah you really went to the right guy the reason he took your number is because he's got you bugged now. And he's like, whoops. I mean, he's more than whoops. Yeah, I think whoops doesn't quite cover it. Have you seen any of the videos analysing the way Putin walks? Oh, no. He doesn't move his right arm at all when he's walking. Okay, yeah. Right arm, left arm, one of his arms. And there's a lot of speculation of why he does

that. And they're like, oh, maybe it's because he's packing all the time. So like he can't move his arm. But if that was true, why don't his bodyguards walk in the same way? So maybe he's had a stroke. Maybe. This is one of the, let's just say all the things that are going to get us murdered. Secret stroke. By the Russians.

Vladimir Putin absolutely, definitely, 100% had a secret stroke, just like Donald Trump did. They probably had it together. I mean. Allegedly. Alleg allegedly. Allegedly. That'll save us from the Russians. It's got us this far. Litvinenko, after his misguided attempt to appeal to Vladimir

Putin's more wholesome side, which doesn't exist, doesn't exist, didn't work here. I guess the only thing I could think of, the most wholesome thing I've ever heard of Vladimir Putin is still wrapped up in quite a lot of corruption. But his daughter, I don't know if you've heard this, she's obsessed with roller dancing, like absolutely obsessed with it. So he spent literally millions and millions and millions of dollars building a massive fucking roller skating rink in Moscow while people are starving to death. And he was like, go on, darling. I love you.

Genuinely. So Litvinenko, after his misguided attempt to do this, was quickly arrested. And he actually spent a year in prison. I'm surprised that he was released. But he was released. And as soon as he managed to escape, he grabs his wife and his son and they hightail it out of Russia to the UK.

Russian prison is no joke. Black dolphin. Is that one? I think it's a swan UK. Russian prison is no joke. Black Dolphin. Is that one? I think it's the swan. Anyway, they're no joke. Fucking horrible. There's one, I watched a YouTube documentary about one that's like the worst of the worst. And it's in the middle of Siberia.

Black Dolphin prison. It's the one where they like bend you over when they're walking the prisoners down around so that they can't assess the corridors. They can't like assess the route because they're just staring at the floor the whole time I also think there's no radiators but they paint them on in the cells they like paint radiators and I know that because I was going to do my dissertation on prison tattoos but then I decided I didn't really want to go into a male prison on my own so I didn't so after he gets out of big deal Russian prison we don't know which one he went to maybe it was like a martha stewart prison for tax evaders and it was he had a nice time

unlikely but i'll hold on to it so after he's released he takes his wife and his kids and they head to jolly old england where they were granted political asylum and then just a few years later citizenship and if that sounds surprising it's because Priti Patel was nowhere near the Home Office at this particular point in time. I think it's also because, I mean, we'll go on to see that this falls down many, many times in this story and in multiple stories like this. But because he was seen as like a defector from that state and then he becomes an advisor slash agent for MI6, I think they like fast track it through to keep you motivated. Oh, I'm absolutely sure, yeah. Meanwhile, back in Mother Russia, Alexander's face was being used

as target practice at FSB gun rages. I didn't know people actually did that. Yeah, I saw the video footage. His face is plastered all over the firing ranges at the training grounds at the FSB. But they love doing this. The FSB loves making an example of anyone they deem to be a traitor. And this is absolutely horrific.

And like I was saving it to say later, but why not? We can do what we want. There was an example where the FSB tracked down a traitor, quote unquote. I mean, obviously he did betray them. So I guess he is a traitor. And he was another former KGB spy who had come to the UK they caught him they found him they didn't kill him in the UK they killed him

somewhere else they put him in a house locked it and set it on fire and then videoed him burning alive inside the building and now

at the start of every like new FSB cohort like coming through the training that is the first thing that they're shown to be

like this is what will happen to you oh my god yep and that's because Putin he hates traitors more than literally anything else he talks about it all the time he's like scumbags bastards traitors dogs he's like very it's hard when you're not a Russian speaker because when you're watching him speak about these things, his face doesn't really change, his tone doesn't really change. It's when you watch the subtitles and you're like, that's what he's saying. That's what he's saying, fucking out.

But we would be leading you astray, dear listener, if we implied that Putin only went after Alexander Litvinenko because he thought he was a traitor. There would actually be another incident that would push Putin to take action. But to understand that, we need to take a little trip back in time to chart the rise of Putin from Soviet spy to perma-president. And possibly the richest and most powerful man in the world today.

Because it ain't Joe Biden. Putin was born to a working- class family in Leningrad, which is now St. Petersburg, in 1952. And like most people in Soviet Russia at that time, he lived in a communal apartment with a couple of other families. As a kid, he was obsessed with spy novels and knew that from an early age, all he wanted in life was to work for the KGB. And after he finished his law degree, Putin got his wish. For a while in the late 80s, Putin worked as a KGB spy in East Germany. And from the very start of his career,

Putin was widely known to be a hyper-nationalistic person, always talking about the motherland and his favourite, traitors. Apparently there was, like, even during his time training in the KGB somebody recommended like one of his professors trainers whatever recommended he read this book and he finds out that the book was written by a man who it was relevant to what he was needing to learn but since that man had defected and he was like I refuse to read I refuse to read anything written by a dog traitor and it's, even within an organization that would... He's extreme even for the KGB.

Exactly. Even within an organization that would have vilified that man, but understood that that book would have still been valuable to read, he refuses to take part in it. And then after his time in East Germany, he comes back to Russia and he works in the KGB. And then he also sort of cuts his teeth in politics a little bit through just like mayoral level elections, etc. So we're going to skip ahead through quite a lot of his life and head to he also sort of cuts his teeth in politics a little bit through just like mayoral level elections etc so we're going to skip ahead through quite a lot of his life and head to 1996 which is when Boris Yeltsin like we said then president of Russia made Putin the head of the FSB. Then three years later Yeltsin appointed Putin to be prime minister so that's basically second in command and just a few

months after he appointed him prime minister, Yeltsin stepped down as president and named Putin his successor. The following year, Putin won the presidential elections on his own and he never looked back. And during his first year in power, Putin had just a few things on his mind. And one of those things was Chechnya. This has been quite a learning curve for me. I was, of course, aware of the Chechnyan wars, aware of the issues there, aware of the continuing situation. But I didn't know it in this depth. And again, I say in this depth that we are going to have to do a red-handed rundown. Otherwise, we will be here for 10 episodes talking about the Chechnyan wars. Well, if there was no red-handed rundown, I was going to go home. Excellent. Well, it's here,

everybody. Are you ready? So after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was an extremely fractious and difficult period of transition for the area as it reshaped itself from the USSR into the Russian Federation. And the reason for a lot of the tension, a lot of the drama that was going on was because there was a lot of loud calls for independence ringing in from various regions across the former USSR. So the USSR, the Soviet Union, absolutely fucking enormous. Oh, yeah. It spans two continents. Exactly. So then when it falls, the thing we have to remember is that, yes, the majority of people are ethnically Russian, but there are a lot of minorities in there. I think 20% of the USSR population were not ethnically Russian. A lot of Muslims.

Different religions, different languages, different ethnicities. So once the USSR falls, these various different regions, various different groups start calling for independent states and independent nations and to be recognized. And one of the loudest calls like this was coming from the mainly Muslim Chechen separatists in the North Caucasus, who almost as soon as the Soviet Union disintegrated, immediately declared independence. So they weren't even asking for it. They were saying, we are now the independent state of Chechnya. But Yeltsin did not like this. I think they knew there's going to have to be some breakup, right? We can't just say... We can't just be like, there's no more USSR, but you can't have anything else.

Yeah, but we're now just the Russian Federation and nothing changes. They knew they were going to have to succeed something. But what the Russian Federation was more keen to do is, we'll give you autonomy, not freedom. But the Chechnyans are like, go fuck yourselves. Well, a lot of them are like, go fuck yourselves. And Yeltsin's biggest concern at, you know, giving in to the Chechnyan demands was that if he allowed Chechnya to become an independent nation, he was worried, rightly so, that this would then prompt like a contagion effect because then what's to stop the group next to them

demanding it and the next and the next and the next. And he knew if that started, the Russian Federation would be doomed. How much more territory would they stand to lose? God only knows. So he is not keen. And he also wasn't keen on giving up getting his hands on Chechnya's very valuable oil resources.

That will help. That will help. It will indeed. So to stamp down the rebellion, the Russians went in, and the first Chechen war broke out in 1994. Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of Chechnya, culminating in the devastating Battle of Grozny where 25,000 people died. But despite Russia's overwhelming advantages in firepower, manpower, weaponry, artillery, combat vehicles, airstrikes and air support, they were absolutely smashed by Chechen guerrilla warfare.

And I've seen the pictures. Again, obviously aware that this war happened. I had heard of the Battle of Grozny before but I didn't know how horrendous it was. I googled the image and I was like, fuck me, it is one of the most depressing things I've ever seen. For good reason. The Chechen War was deeply unpopular with the Russian people. Their men and boys were being killed in droves and their nation was already in the depths of a major economic depression. The cost of this war was just too high.

It's kind of reminiscent of Afghanistan. Oh, absolutely. When I think of the Chechen War, I always think of Bosnia and I always think of Afghanistan. Yeah. And the ways in which it's similar specifically to Afghanistan is because Chechnya is a very mountainous country. Well, I know it's not recognised as a country. It's a very mountainous region. Afghanistan, the same, which makes it harder for foreign invaders to invade and successfully hold it down because the guerrilla fighters there know the land much better. They're almost trained to fight on that kind of terrain. And things like tanks, famously not mountaineering equipment. Well, it's like the Vietnamese, like the Viet Cong, etc.

Yes, exactly. They had been fighting, firstly the Japanese, then the French, then the Chinese. That's probably the wrong order. But they've been at war for decades already. So when the Americans showed up, they had absolutely no chance. Absolutely. And I think, again, here with the Russians, because everybody always makes this point that they were so much better funded.

They had so many more troops. But the problem was, the majority of the fighters who went from Russia to go into Chechnya were conscripts. They were just like young kids. They were not trained soldiers. They were just like, you know, the fucking butcher's son and given a knife and told to go. All the soldiers are looking through peepee holes. Precisely. On the other hand, when they get to Chechnya, these Chechen separatists are militants. They are trained in guerrilla warfare. They didn't stand a chance. The Russian government also realised that their aggressive tactics in Chechnya were soiling

Russia's new post-Soviet image of being a liberal capitalist democratic nation, can you imagine? And so eventually, Boris Yeltsin's government agreed to a ceasefire with the Chechens in 1996, and a peace treaty was signed a year later. But as you of course will remember from mere moments ago boris yeltsin leaves it's really weird in some places they're like boris yeltsin just stepped down nobody had any idea why and i was like because everybody fucking hated him after the war and all the russians thought he was a fucking drunk and they were like we're in a depression you just got a bunch of our men killed you You're a fucking alcoholic. We hate you. And he's like, okay, I'll leave then, shall I?

And he just slowly walks out of the door. And then now these articles are like, it was such a surprise. My Russian friend, our Russian correspondent, she was talking, because we were talking about drink driving laws in Russia, and it is zero tolerance.

So anyone who drives in Moscow does not drink at all, ever. So we were talking about Putin and I was like oh let's see or like on the vodka like the stereotype she was like

I would be amazed if he drinks at all oh I 100% I 100% think like a man like Putin wouldn't drink like remember Ian Watkins when he becomes like

fully depraved he like completely stops everything because it's better to be in control Trump also didn't drink doesn't drink he's not dead I didn't know that no he doesn't drink.

He says it's because his brother died of alcoholism. And maybe it is. I would be surprised if Putin drunk. So yes, after Boris Yeltsin signs that peace treaty, in the next two years, he obviously leaves and hands over the reins to Putin. With Putin now at the helm, the war was about to see the start of the Second Chechen War.

Because Putin's got no time for your peace treaties. Peace treaty? What peace treaty? I have pee-pee holes. And this Second Chechen War was precipitated by the invasion of Dagestan by Islamist fighters from Chechnya. Because, and this is very important, by this stage, the Chechen War had evolved into a religious one. And again, this is where we have to draw another parallel with Afghanistan. Because obviously, dear listeners, if you have listened to R2-PATRON, Shemimu Begum and ISIS, you will remember that the Soviets obviously invaded Afghanistan many moons ago. And when they did this, obviously, Afghanistan saw Mujahideen flood in from all over the Islamic world to fight out what they saw as this kind of foreign aggressor, to fight a holy war, to fight a jihad.

And that is, of course, what brought rich Saudi Osama bin Laden into the fold for the first time. And it's also why in Rambo 3, the Mujahideen is like dedicated to the Mujahideen, they're like they've got pale skin and green eyes they're on white horses i haven't seen rambo three but that is interesting i haven't watched either but i heard it on a podcast um ah i love it let's not give ourselves away would you like that's great excellent point excellent point and so basically this is exactly what's happening again in chechnya so you, like I said, the majority of Chechen people are Muslim. And now it's become a holy war because you've had people usurp this fight for freedom from the Russian Federation, from the former USSR, to become a holy war. And now you see Mujahideen flooding. It's just going to be even harder. It's going to be an even harder fight. And it was.

Because Putin also knew that the first Chechen war had been deeply unpopular. And he also knew that that's probably one of the main reasons that Boris Yeltsin got himself thrown out of office. It's a pretty quick way to get yourself out, kill a load of boys and be a drunk. Absolutely. And also, interestingly, the invasion by the Soviets of Afghanistan, I know they were there for years, but when they were eventually kicked out in 1989, that was directly one of the reasons of the Soviets of Afghanistan. I know they were there for years, but when they were eventually kicked out in 1989, that was directly one of the reasons of the fall of the Soviet Union. So like the stakes are fucking sky high here. You are really going to go back into Chechnya.

It is almost a like for like for what happened in Afghanistan. So it's a big decision by Putin to do this. But he wanted to go in. And this is because, again, this is a fundamental part of Putin's DNA. He feels this overwhelming need to bring Chechnya to heel. He doesn't want to allow them to get away with this invasion of Dagestan. Then who knows what else anyone else will do. You've lost all power and lost all control. But even Putin knows that the invasion of Dagestan wasn't going to be seen probably by the Russian public as enough.

He knew he needed more provocation to justify a war. And so this brings us to one of the bloodiest incidents in modern Russian history and how this incident allowed Putin to rise to power and establish himself as a man of action. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either,

until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness

and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,

Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry.

Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. In the Moscow apartment bombings of 1999, 300 people were killed, and Putin put the blame squarely on Chechen rebels. It was an act of war. The Second Chechen War raged for 10 years until 2009,

and some estimations suggest that the death toll could be as high as 200,000 people. A pivotal moment in this bloody war came in 2002 when a Moscow theatre was seized by 40 Chechen militants, taking almost 1,000 hostages. During the three-day siege that followed, they love a siege, 129 people died. The reason this was such a critical moment for Putin was because many expected his domestic approval ratings to nosedive.

But his ruthless handling of the siege and his refusal to negotiate with the hostage takers cemented his strongman status. Just like that picture of him riding that bear. And his approval rating went up to 83% after it was all over. And with that, Putin sniffily knows sniffed out an opportunity. Putin quickly realised that rather than doing the incredibly difficult task of pursuing an agenda of, I don't know, economic improvement and growth and prosperity and low unemployment for Russia, he could just focus instead on blaming all of the problems faced by the Russian people on external enemies and internal saboteurs. So he's like, animal farm, do that.

That sounds good. And you know, this is nothing new. This is very much straight out of the Stalin playbook. It's very much out of the playbook of every despot. And his way of, you know, shoring everybody up, because you can't just tell everybody it's all everybody else's fault and then do nothing about it. No, no, no. What he was going to do is he was going to rebuild a positive sense of Russian patriotism, bolstered by state-run media, churning out constant propaganda, and all underpinned with incredibly aggressive geopolitical moves.

Basically, he's like, let's get back to an era of Russian imperialism, a campaign to make Russia great again, if you will. Like, that's what it is. It is a tried and tested ideology, isn't it? We'll blame everybody else. And the more they attack us, the better, because then I can just blame them for why people here are hungry or why people here are hungry or why people here are poor. And then I can continue to use aggressive tactics geopolitically to say that

we're rebuilding the Russian empire. I think it's very funny how everyone conveniently forgets that David Cameron's campaign slogan was make Britain great again. And Britain is kind of the only one where it works 100% because obviously we're supposed to be called Great Britain in the first place. And then Trump ran afterwards with make America great again. So it's all Cameron's fault. Outrageous. Wasn't it also the campaign that was literally on that Simpsons episode?

Yep. That is hilarious. Yeah, it really, really, really, really, really was. Matt Groening's a time traveller, I'm convinced. I mean, there's something going on. But Putin wasn't just all talk with the aggressive foreign tactics. No, no, no. Because in 2014, you might remember, dear friends,

because it's not that long ago, Putin decided to annex Crimea. And what does all of this have to do with our case today? I might hear you screaming. Well, the Moscow apartment bombings, which were used as the justification for the Second Chechen War and that gave Putin the green light on any and all future aggressive geopolitical moves, kind of, sort of, turns out wasn't carried out by Chechen rebels after all. The evidence suggests that it was in fact the FSB.

Goodie. They were even caught putting bombs in the buildings. Yeah, that would tend to indicate that it was them. But you never know. You never know. And to be honest, you know, I'm saying that it wasn't the Chechen rebels and it was definitely Putin. This isn't the official story, Keltsaprees. This is the truth, but it's not the official story.

Got it. And of those who were voicing suspicions, just like us, over the involvement of the Kremlin in the bombings and what the official story may have been, or still is, Alexander Litvinenko was one of the loudest. He even wrote a book, which was called Blowing Up Russia. And in this book, he pointed the finger directly at Putin and stated that the bombings were a false flag operation to get back into Chechnya.

This book gained a lot of traction and even convinced some very influential people of his theory. The Russian parliament actually started an inquiry into the bombings. But, surprise, surprise, the three MPs involved in the investigation ended up murdered. No one thought that was a bit of a red flag. I think they thought... I mean, I'm sure they thought all sorts of things. They didn't do anything. No, I think anyone who saw it happen was like, that's such a red flag. I'm going to not investigate this. I got it. Red flag. I'll

stop. I'm just going to hide in my peepee hole. And it doesn't stop there. A number of journalists were also mysteriously killed in the following years. The most notable was the shooting of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in her apartment in 2006 on Putin's birthday. Alexander Litvinenko was devastated. He'd been good friends with Anna. And thinking that he was safe in the UK, Alexander began speaking out once again. In 2005, at the Frontline Club in London, he publicly accused Putin of murdering Anna. And within three weeks, he was in hospital. And I think that's one of the

saddest things of this case is because Alexander Litvinenko is obviously in Britain. He's a British citizen. And Marina, his wife, who's now in a lot of these documentaries, says he would tell her, it's okay, Marina. I can now say everything that I think. We're free. We're in Britain. No one can touch us. No one can do anything to us. I can stand up for people like Anna who were being murdered by the Kremlin, because people in Russia can't do it. And I understand why, but I can do it. Three weeks later, he's in hospital. And then three weeks after that, he's dead. So let's get back to Alexander Livinenko and what his condition was like in hospital. On the 20th of November 2006 he was in an absolutely critical condition. It was then that his wife Marina took the now infamous photo of the former spy. If you google Alexander Livinenko the first photo you're going to see is the one of him

in the hospital bed where he's got no hair, he looks incredibly sick. He looks, you know, he's aged about 50 years. He's 44 years old in that picture. He looks like it's 75. He looks like Robert Durst is what he looks like. Yes. Yeah. And Marina actually purposely took this photo of how Alexander looked in that condition because they wanted to release it to the world. They wanted everyone to see what the Russian state and specifically what Putin had done to Alexander. And by this point, he is suffering beyond what I could even imagine. He could now hardly even speak. But the problem was the doctors in the hospital

still didn't know what poison had been used. So they're basically trying various combinations, various cocktails of drugs to keep him alive and to help him and to get the poison out of his system. But unless you know what it is, they're like, we can't do anything. So with little else to go on, they decide to take a shot in the dark. And they sent a litre of Alexander's urine to the atomic weapons establishment in Aldermaston in Berkshire. And it was here that scientists found a spike of polonium-210 in the urine sample from Alexander Litvinenko. And at first, everybody actually thought it was just a

complete mistake. They thought that they had maybe just contaminated the urine sample and that's why it was now showing that it had polonium-210 in it. But there was no mistake. And the reason they were also freaked out is because polonium-210 is a rare and highly, highly, highly radioactive isotope. And it is one of the most toxic substances that exists on this here planet Earth. It is 250 billion times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide, the thing that will very famously kill you pretty quickly and horribly. And if you can get your hands on it, polonium-210 that is, it's actually kind of sort of the perfect weapon. And that's because it's colourless, it's odourless, it's extremely hard to detect, and it is, of course, highly, highly deadly. In fact, one one-millionth of a gram of polonium-210, if ingested, is a fatal dose.

And I really tried to find out how much exactly over the fatal dose Alexander Litvinenko had in his system. It's super not clear. A reason for this could be that the isotope decays very quickly, so it might be hard to nail down exactly how much was in his body or how much was given to him. Some places say it was five times, some places say 200. The BBC documentary on this case says he had a million times the fatal dose in his system. And if it's one one millionth of a gram is a fatal dose, and he had million times over the fatal dose, then by my calculation, somebody gave him a gram of polonium. That seems shocking when you need so little in order to poison somebody. Why would someone use that much? Reasons for this, we're going to go on to discuss why I do think

somebody did use that vast amount of it. But would you like to know, Hannah, what you can do with one one millionth of a gram of polonium? Well, to say I know many things about white powders in gram bags would be a lie. I know nothing at all. I think this is a liquid, but I'll let you off. I just, yeah, I'm trying to imagine a gram bag with a liquid in it. Is it go to the moon? You might be able to because you could probably pile up all of the people that you've killed with it. Because one gram of polonium-210 is enough to kill 50 million people. Five zero million people.

And also at the same time, not either or, at the same time, make another 50 million people very, very ill. So that's 100 million people. You'll 50% kill, 50% super sick from radiation poisoning. Probably a lot of those people will go on to die of cancer in the future. So you're killing a lot of people. The entire population of the UK, if we assume that whoever poisoned Alexander Litvinenko was chucking a gram of polonium-210 at him, the entire population of the UK is only 66 million. In a lot of places you'll see this case, and in Parliament later, as we'll go on to see, they call this reckless. I would say that throwing around grams of polonium-210

on an island nation with 66 million people is a bit more than reckless. I think it's an absolute statement, because polonium-210 is extremely expensive. Oh, there is so much behind why. Yeah, no, I'm sure. It's a power play. They didn't need to use it. No, no, no. And we'll go on to discuss specifically why Russia does this. Another interesting fact that I found when I was doing all my various googlings about polonium-210, in 2012, a Swiss team of scientists exhumed former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's remains and guess what they found? Jelly babies. Jelly babies and polonium-210 at 17 times the normal rate that you would expect because it does occur naturally as well. But it

was in the ground, it was in the like dirt that had like soaked up his fluids and remains as he decayed and in his bones. Polonium-210 was at 17 times higher than the rate you would expect to find. The scientists at Aldermaston who discovered the polonium-210 in Alexander's urine, which is blood waste, not digestive waste, as I literally only just learned, they couldn't believe that he was still alive after 21 days. They're literally like, so he's dead. And they're like, no, he's still alive. And they cannot like, no, he's still alive. And they

cannot believe it. He only managed to hang on for so long because Litvinenko was such a health and fitness freak. And a total teetotaler. Like didn't drink anything, super, super fit. For 44, he is like in excellent shape. And that is the only reason that he holds on for 21 days. I would be dead in five minutes. Oh, they'd have just been like, I won't give away how they poisoned him, but they'd have just had to look at me and I would have died. She died of radiation poisoning. And why has she got so many packets of jelly babies in her pocket? So he does hold on. He holds on for more than should be humanly possible. But on the 23rd of November 2006, after more than three weeks of total agony, Alexander Litvinenko died in ICU following a heart attack.

His last words were to his friend, Andrei Nexkarov, and he referred to Putin himself. These were his last words. You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed you have shown yourself to have no respect for life liberty or any civilized value may god forgive you for what you have done not only to me but to beloved russia and its people it's such a like forgive them father for they know not what they do yeah man like oh and he's fucking wrecked. Yeah, man. 21 days. He died of radiation sickness.

Yeah, which, like, if you have seen the excellent series Chernobyl, you will know that the way radiation kills you is it literally destroys the walls of your cells. You are being destroyed from the inside out. One month after his death, Alexander Litvinenko's still highly radioactive body was buried in a lead-lined coffin in Highgate Cemetery. I didn't know he was in Highgate. Yeah. Sigma

Freud's in there too. He was just 44 years old. At this point, however, Scotland Yard was still publicly stating that they were only investigating an unexplained death, even though the people at Oldham Aspen were like, no, we can explain it. It's Polonium 210. They're just like, no, no, let's just see what happens. Maybe he poisoned himself. I don't know. We're working on that. Maybe he climbed into a nuclear reactor himself and ate a bunch, a pile of polonium-210. The M word, or even the A word, had not been thrown into the public mix just yet. But the day he died, Alexander's friends and family immediately and

loudly started accusing President Putin of having orchestrated the hit against him. Litvinenko's father, whose name is Walter, told reporters that his son had been killed by a, quote, tiny little nuclear bomb, which is true. It is exactly true. Putin responded by saying on Russian state TV that famously even-handed and objective news source. Bastion of truth. Exactly. Russian state TV. Putin said that Alexander's death was a tragedy, but he saw no definitive proof that it was a violent death. It's also a weird way he says it because he doesn't say that it doesn't look like he was murdered. Well, he does go on to say that later. But like the justification is like he says it's not a violent death, like nobody hacked him to death with a machete. I'm like, what? I'd rather be hacked

to death with a machete. Oh, yeah, me too. Than turn into liquid. And also considering the postmortem on Alexander found that his insides had essentially slurried and dissolved as a result of radiation poisoning. It's quite a hard thing to swallow. Yeah, the idea that it wasn't a violent death when his insides literally liquefied. Define violent. The Russians even accused MI5, MI6, or the mob of having carried out the killing,

which is their favourite thing to do. They're like, what happened on your soil? It's probably your fault. Or perhaps, as they also suggested, Alexander himself was smuggling polonium-210. And maybe he just accidentally poisoned himself. Who's buying polonium-210? The Russia Russians. So the problem with these theories, however, are that polonium-210 is incredibly difficult to get hold of. This is the thing. Poloniumonium 210 can't just like be

cooked up in your fucking like meth lab it's got to be made it can only be made in a nuclear reactor reactors in any country famously under very high top security protection russia's got a lot though they have got a lot and it seems like even though we talked about how good polonium-210 would be as a weapon, it seems like a lot of hassle for an organised crime group or the mob, for example, to break into a high-security nuclear reactor facility to steal polonium-210. Yeah, when they could just shoot someone, which they've done loads of times. Which is exactly what they do. And that's exactly what Misha Glennie says. Did you ever watch that BBC drama, MacMafia? No. I watched one episode

and I was like, this is boring. Sorry. It's just because I'm not really interested in the mob stuff. But MacMafia is a nonfiction book based on organized crime and Russian state. Okay. I feel like I have heard of it. Yeah. It's a really highly recommended book. I haven't actually read it. I'll be honest, but it comes very highly rated. And in this, Misha Glennie says that when it's the mob, they shoot you. And if you're poisoned, it is the state. That is how they will assassinate you. They won't come and shoot you.

This is the prime way in which the state would do it. And the reason is because they choose something like a slow-acting but brutal poison like Polonium-210. Not by accident. They do it on purpose because it allows the Russian state to poison you and then to remove themselves from that situation. They know that you are going to slowly and painfully die, but they can be far enough away from you when you start to realise that you're sick to claim ignorance and innocence. Alexander Litvinenko, let's go with the fact that he had a gram of polonium-210 given to him. He didn't go to hospital for three days. He was sick immediately that night, but he didn't go to hospital for three days.

And again, the reason they also choose something so brutal and something that clearly has a marker to them as the Russian state is they're sending a message. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Their message they're sending is, just because you've left Russia, don't ever think you're safe. Yeah, Putin has long arms.

Wherever you are, we will get you. And we won't just come shoot you in the back of the head. We'll fucking poison you with radiation. It feels unbelievable. So the sample of polonium-210 that was taken from Alexander Litvinenko's body, like every batch of radioactive material that's ever made anywhere, had a fingerprint. That's interesting. Absolutely. I didn't know this. And that fingerprint in this nuclear sample could be traced specifically to a nuclear reactor in the town of Serov in Russia.

So for the Russians to be like, maybe you did it, it came from Russia. And we can prove that. They knew that it was going to be traced that's why at the start we said that this assassination was meant to be obvious and savage they don't want other people who are you know dissenders or ex-kgb or double agents to think maybe he did poison himself phew they're like no, no, no, we did it. Wink, wink, wink, wink, wink through the peepee hole. So now the question for Scotland Yard, given that they knew this badge of Polonium 210 had come directly from Russia, was who specifically had done this? So had it come directly from the orders of Putin or was it like a rogue actor? And how had they

done it? How had they got polonium 210 into this country and delivered it to alexander litvinenko they need to be able to piece together that narrative of like what actually happened if they ever stand a chance of building a case and they knew from the start that this investigation was going to be complex beyond imagination not only because it was obviously murder but all the signs also indicated that it probably wasn't the actions of a rogue actor. A kill like this they knew could really only have come from the top, from Putin himself. And it wasn't lost on Scotland Yard that accusing the leader of another country, a hostile country at that, of murdering a British citizen would probably stir up a bit of trouble. It was going to be a political diplomatic legal and, given the weapon that had been used potentially public health

nightmare. The only way to answer any of these questions would be for the police to follow the polonium trail around London and try to find the source of it. Because this is the thing they also don't know how it was delivered to Livignanco so they don't know if it's still out there if it could poison other people if they're going to have some sort of like mass radiation sickness exactly in london like they just don't know using what alexander had told them about the day he'd started to feel unwell scotland yard paid a visit to an itsu on oxford street i know it well this is going to become a very prominent part of this story moving forward it's on oxford street it was here i feel like no one goes to its's on Oxford Street on purpose.

You go to It's on Oxford Street where you've got 45 minutes to kill before a meeting or like you're waiting for a train. Like nobody goes there on purpose. That's it. Only those two options. Or to do the things that these guys were doing. Yeah. Or Polonium 210.

Espionage meetings. And it was here on the 1st of November 2006 that Alexander had met with an Italian intelligence agent, Mario Scaramella. The pair had eaten lunch together at ITSU, presumably because they were waiting for a train. And according to Alexander, Mario had been incredibly nervous and intense. When the police tested for polonium in that ITSU, much to their shock, they found it on the tables at the restaurant. If you're exposed to polonium- that itsu much to their shock they found it on the tables at the restaurant if you're exposed to polonium 210 you start to secrete it through your sweat so kind of like a transfer dna everything you touch you leave a trace behind you yeah this is basically how they trace it

because the only way this could have been tracking around was if someone had touched the polonium and then they were touching the tables and like moving stuff around or they had ingested it by this point and it's coming out of their skin and they're touching stuff bad times but the only good thing i can say about polonium is that unless you have a cut or unless you swallow it it can't penetrate your skin okay so the fact that it's on the tables no one else is going to get fucked up no one else is going to get fucked up unless they like... They put their fingers in their mouth. Hardcore lick the table or something like that.

It's very handy for the police because now they have like a trail, a literal trail to follow. So when they tracked down Mario Scaramello, he was indeed contaminated by polonium-210 as well. I'm sure that didn't help his nervous anxiety. So the police are basically suspicious of him because if you're also the poisoner, it's also highly likely that you're going to be contaminated as well. So they suspect Mario at first. And they even go to the Thistle Hotel in Victoria, where Mario had been staying. But when they tested his room, they found that there was absolutely no traces of polonium-210 in that room.

So they decided that it was unlikely he was the killer. Now, as I promised, Itzu on Oxford Street is going to become a very important part of this story, so we will come back to it later. But for now, the police turned their attention to the next meeting that Alexander had had the day that he got sick. After he left Mario, Alexander had gone to meet two Russian nationals, Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, West London. Lugovoy was a former KGB officer and Kovtun was a former Soviet soldier.

Seems suspect. Like, oh, he went to go meet a former KGB officer after that meeting. Cool. So apparently Alexander was meeting up with him because in 2005, Lugovoy had proposed starting a PI business together. Why not? Presumably Alexander didn't know who they really were. I do think that, so obviously Alexander Litvinenko keeps himself alive for three weeks to give all this information. Why isn't he like, it was the Russians I saw that day, why does he start it on Oxford Street with the Italian? Well, he gives them everything.

Okay, okay. He tells them about Lugavoy and he tells them about Cofton, but he also tells them about Mario. And the reason he tells them about Mario is because that was the day he got sick. But like you said, he was like, Mario was acting weird that day, what was going on. So he does lead them to all of these clues. Okay, okay, okay. According to Alexander's hospital testimony,

when he arrived at the hotel, the two men had invited him to join them for tea. Very surprised. So he poured himself a cup and had a few sips. But it was cold and tasted a bit weird, so he left. Police headed straight to the Millennium Hotel to test all of the crockery and bingo. They found a teapot that gave a full scale deflection reading. So basically what that means is that the radiation levels were so high they couldn't be measured. It's basically my understanding of what a full scale deflection reading is is on the meter that they're using to test for the radioactivity.

It's when the needle moves all the way to the end. So they don't actually know how much it is but it's full scale. Too much. Yeah, too much. Too much for tea. There's too much polonium-210 in this tea. I don't like it. And as one of Scotland Yard's officers put it, and I'm sure he will be dining out on this for the rest of his life, they had found their smoking teapot. Lugavoy and Cofton were both staying at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel during their trip to

London. And the police knew this, so after they find the teapot, they go straight to the rooms that the men had been in, and guess what they found found they found so much polonium 210 in the sink and the pipes of that bathroom in that hotel room that the radiation scanners and this is a quote from the detectives who were there they were screaming they just fucking poured it down the drain they just poisoned alexander in hotel, gone back to their room and just poured what's left of the polonium 210 down the drain of their London hotel suite.

What the fuck? But it's not idiocy though. It's so on purpose. It's just unbelievable. They make a lot of mistakes though and next week's episode when we'll talk about that fucking mistakes galore. So it really is like a lot of it feels very incompetent. A lot of it feels very stupid.

I don't know. I don't know why. But this is shocking. And this is why earlier when I said, could they reasonably have used a gram? Like, why would they use a gram when you know a few milliliters will work? But it feels like the reason you're doing it. They have so much. Yeah.

They have so much. They came back and poured it down the fucking drain, which is why I think probably he did have a million times the lethal dose in his system. What's a gram in a teapot? It's shocking. So now the police could trace how Alexander had been poisoned. They knew it was through the teapot. But the question that kept niggling away was if Alexander had been poisoned after his meeting with Mario, so when he goes to the Millennium Hotel to meet the two Russians, why then was Oxford Street itsu contaminated with polonium-210? This is the wrong way around because he goes to meet Mario first. So the police are completely confused as to why Mario was contaminated and why the tables in itsu Oxford Street were also contaminated when it was before this meeting. Before the smoking teapot. Before the smoking teapot. Well, it turned out that there

were actually two tables in that very unfortunate itsu branch on Oxford Street that had been contaminated with polonium-210. The table where Mario and Alexander had been sat on the 1st of November, so the day Alexander got sick, only showed signs of secondary transfer. Another table next to where they were sat showed a primary contamination. And this is where things got a whole lot more complicated. It turned out that on the 16th of October, two weeks before the fatal meeting at the Millennium Hotel, Lugovoy and Alexander had met at, you guessed it, the Oxford Street Itzu. Unbelievably, this seems to have been the first of what would turn out to be three attempts to poison Alexander Litvinenko.

The best guess the police could make given just how much polonium-210 they found on the tables in Itzu and the fact that Alexander didn't get sick and die then and there is that Lugovoy must have spilled the poison on the table. Yep.

So they think two weeks before, he goes there, tries to poison him, spills the polonium-2-10 all over the table. Alexander touches it, but doesn't get sick because it doesn't absorb through his body. And then he comes back two weeks later and it's still on him. And that's how he contaminates Mario and the other table.

So they tried to kill him two weeks before and spilled the polonium everywhere. So the restaurant's contaminated. Alexander himself is contaminated, but we know as long as you're not eating it or it's not going in an open wound, it's fine. Your skin's good at its job and polonium can only make you sick if it gets into your bloodstream. So that explained why Alexander was moving around, leaving traces of the poison, but was perfectly fine after this meeting at the Oxford Street jitsu. If I ever end up in there again, I'm looking at everyone very closely and not licking the table. Yeah, don't lick the table.

I mean, don't lick tables full stop, but especially not in the jitsu on Oxford Street. Don't do it. It's probably still there. I'm sure it is. It's probably got a plaque on the wall. After this first attempt, both men returned to Russia and presumably got more polonium since they'd spilled it all on the Itzu on Oxford Street. Then a week later on the 25th of October, flight records showed that Lugovoy came back on his own this time. Once again, CCTV showed that he and Alexander had met. This time they'd met at Grosvenor House, another central London hotel. This time the police found a bunch of polonium-210 on a table and tablecloth in one of the meeting rooms in the hotel. And they checked, and when they checked

Lugavoy's room, they found again massive amounts of contamination, specifically in the bin in the bathroom, and splashed all up the wall next to the bin in the bathroom like he'd thrown something with polonium 210 into the bin and it splashed up the wall what the fuck it's his room i have been pondering this in my brain hole presumably like alexander litvin has a pre-existing relationship with these men otherwise he wouldn't be going for tea all the time and he must think that they are nowhere near fsb otherwise he wouldn't be going for tea all the time and he must think that they are nowhere near fsb otherwise he wouldn't be going it makes the most sense that like these guys don't have any particular training they've just been instructed by the fsb to do what they're doing

but they're not agents themselves well lugavoy is former kgb right okay and koften was in the soviet army as like a pretty high up like colonel or something. So they're not just like randos. Right. Right. And actually it is very pre-planned. Lugovoy actually reached out to Litvinenko the year before. So they're planning this for a long time. A year before and says like, you know, I think he paints himself out to also be a defector and also be like, look, I'm also ex-KGB I've got great like pb whole skills let's start a pi business together and I think Litvinenko probably you know I think he was probably trying to help this guy who he saw as like another victim of the Russian state let me help him or whatever

we don't know but that's what I suspect and I think that's probably also why he didn't immediately jump to the conclusion that it was these two men that had poisoned him but yeah really weird that Lugovoy comes back a week later, doesn't again poison him, but again it's all over the table. Why? I don't understand. And then it's all in his bathroom of the room that he's staying in. And when the police went to obviously check this room after they find out that's where he'd been staying,

they apparently, investigators were like, we actually had to leave the room. Even though the people who'd gone in were in full hazmat, fully protected, they were like, we have to leave, the radiation levels are so high. He had left, this was weeks before. God knows how many people stayed in that room. Jesus, yeah. So after this second failed attempt, which I don't understand why it failed,

Lugovoy went back to Moscow. But like I said, it's not exactly clear what happened. What we do know is that, like we said, there's been two attempts by this point and they have still not managed to successfully poison Litvinenko. With an incredibly toxic poison, why this is happening is a bit of a mystery. But they didn't give up and just two days later, Lugovoy returned once more to London, this time with Koftin. And finally, at long last, third time lucky,

they managed to administer the fatal dose of polonium-210 to Alexander Litvinenko on the 1st of November. When the police tested all of the planes that these two had been taking fucking in and out of London, from London to Moscow, for all this time they're trying to poison him, they found polonium-210 all over the seats and all over the tables they'd been sat at, and they estimate that some 36,000 people had been on these contaminated planes. It was clear now that to get anywhere with this case, Scotland Yard were going to have to head to Moscow. And so on the 4th of December

2006, a team of officers, after a thorough briefing from MI6, made their way to Mother Russia. And the very next day, they met with the Russian general prosecutor and deputy ambassador. They went to interview Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoy. However, the government claimed that they had no idea where the two men were. But British intelligence was telling Scotland Yard that they knew that they were both in Nuclear Hospital No. 6, a secret-ish hospital that had been built to treat Chernobyl victims. Eventually, the Russians accepted that the hospital existed and that Kovtun was there. And after much negotiation, they agreed to allow the British authorities to speak with him. But they said that Scotland Yard weren't allowed to take any of their own recording equipment into the room and the Russians

promised that they would make recordings for them. Yeah. The next day one Scotland Yard officer was taken into a room at the nuclear hospital number six and presented with a man who was fully bandaged up from head to toe. Only his eyes were visible so it could have been quite literally anyone but they were never going to get much out of this bandaged man anyway, even if it was Cofton, because they were told that Cofton didn't speak any English. And the investigator was kicked out of the room after just 13 minutes. Back in London, something was about to happen that would make the job of the officers in Moscow even harder.

The case was now officially declared to be a murder investigation. And that might sound like a good thing, but the problem that the Scotland Yard officers were now facing who were in Moscow was up until now they could at least say, we just want to interview your citizens because they might be witnesses to what happened. But now what you're saying is they could be potential criminals and they're obviously going to be less likely to play ball. And so after this announcement, the already sky-high tensions ratcheted up about a hundred fold. The Russians now began accusing the British of running a purely politically motivated hit job on their government. During this trip, the Scotland Yard officers also

suffered a few bouts of very dodgy tummies. And we don't know what actually happened, but they are on record in these documentaries as Scotland Yard officers saying that they strongly suspected they had been slipped something by their hosts, like put in their tea. I'm like, stop drinking tea with the Russians. Stop it. In those meetings with like the Russian ambassador, they think they slipped something in their tea, not to kill them, but to just slow them down. Just fuck them up a bit. Yeah. Show them who's boss.

Exactly. Like if you're shitting yourself all day, you'll probably just stay in bed instead of investigating this murder inquiry. Yeah, you're not going to be doing your life's work. Exactly. So on the 11th of December, after, again, much lengthy negotiations

and begging and asking for support in this case, the Scotland Yard team was taken back to the hospital to interview Lugovoy this time. And they were told again that they wouldn't be allowed to make their own recordings. The Russians would provide those. Can anyone guess what happened two weeks later when the detectives came back to London? Is it that they put the tapes into an old and timey VHS player and what there was on the tapes instead of interviews was actually just the Russian version of the Teletubbies?

That would have been way better. That would have been way better. That would have been way better because when they got back, they gave the tapes to the forensics team at Scotland Yard. They're like, are there any other tapes? Because quite a lot of the ones you gave us are blank. And the Russians, when they hand over the tapes to the British authorities when they're about to get on a flight and come back to London, they film it, they take photos of them handing it over.

They're handing it over like they're giving a trophy to them. Like, look, we're giving you it, you can't say that we didn't give you the tapes. And they're like, oh, they're blank? There was not much more investigators could do. So they just handed the evidence they did have to CPS, who submitted a request to Russia for the extradition of Lugovoy for murder. I'm sure they'll definitely, definitely give him back. Oh, absolutely.

And not just send someone else wrapped up in toilet paper like a primary school mummy. Lugovoy and Kovtun both just denied the charges and in 2007 the Russian state gave them both immunity from extradition, which of course they can do because they're a sovereign nation. Who's going to stop them? Russia is currently invading Europe. I know we haven't.

We've been very obviously talking about Russia for like probably an hour now and we haven't mentioned the fact that Russia is literally, right now, if you are listening on the 22nd or the 21st of January, whatever we're recording this, Russia is invading Europe. Yeah. And we're like, don't say anything though. We need that gas. So Theresa May, our Prime Minister at the time of the public inquiry, didn't really want anything to do with the case. She didn't really want much to do with anything apart from leather trousers. But she was hardly an anomaly in this regard. Successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, have dragged their feet on ever confronting Russia. For eight years, the British government resisted calls

for a proper investigation into Alexander's death, citing that they needed to protect international relations with Russia. And I do think when you look at the reporting on this case, Theresa May gets a lot of shit for this because she is kind of the one holding, like, the rotten potato when the music stopped. That's a lot of mixed analogies, but you get what I'm saying.

Rotten potato. I am so hungry. So, yeah, she's kind of left holding it. Is it left holding the baby? I don't know. The dirty baby? I don't know. The rotten baby. The rotten baby. The radioactive baby. When the music stops, so to speak, because it's when the public inquiry is about to happen, they've kind of gone as far as anybody's willing to go with it. But Tony Blair was actually the prime minister when Litvinenko was poisoned. Then it's Gordon Brown. Then it's David Cameron. It just takes eight years for anything to fucking happen. And Theresa May's like, are you fucking with everything else I have to deal with? This wasn't on my watch. I'm not defending her because she is really reluctant to do anything like even have a

public inquiry. But I'm just saying the Russian policy by all of our governments, successive governments, has been the same just ignore it yeah and it's not as if it wasn't reported on like I remember so it was everywhere that picture of him in the hospital web was everywhere and then it just sort of stopped being talked about yeah and that was actually one of the points that they make strongest about this we're going to talk about the end of this episode how many times this happened because like I said at the start this is no fucking one-off but this case unraveled like under the glare of like the world's media and we still did nothing. And it was only after yet more unbelievable moves by the Kremlin like murdering more people on British soil that officials gave in and opened a public inquiry. But the fact is

this inquiry only ever happened because of the hard work and doggedness of Marina Litvinenko, Alexander's widow. She worked tirelessly for years to get justice for her husband. And unbelievably, the public inquiry found that Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun had killed Alexander Litvinenko, and that they had done so under the direct instruction of the FSB and Putin. But if you can't extradite them, what fucking good is that? The thing is, it's really hard, I know. And I know even when we say unbelievably it said this, because it was unbelievable.

It was unbelievable that a high court in a country like Britain was saying after a public inquiry, directly pointing the finger at the head of state of another government to say that it was Putin that had ordered this. Because it wasn't just saying it was those two men. They were directly saying this came from the top. that was frankly it was unprecedented we wish that we could say that something more came of this inquiry like the men being punished or even put in prison or extradited whatever standing trial maybe but they didn't they weren't but we do have to say that for a foreign court like the british high court to to name Putin specifically and acknowledge what had happened and why is a pretty powerful statement. And Marina herself

was realistic. She said that this was the best they could have hoped for. And it's honestly amazing that the Livinianco's got anything even remotely close to justice. Because like we said at the start, this case was nowhere near a one-off incident. We could sit here all day and list off the names of all of the Russians who have mysteriously died in Russia after criticising Putin. But did you know that 14, yes 14 people, are believed by the UK and US intelligence services to have been assassinated in Britain alone after some sort of Russian government entanglement? In Britain alone. And that's just in the last couple of decades. So who are these people? Of course, there is Alexander Litvinenko. There's also Gareth

Williams, the spy in the back. Go back and listen to that case. We covered it absolutely years ago. Then remember Boris Borozowski? Yes. The political advisor that Litvinenko wouldn't kill? Well, in 2013, Boris was found hanged in his Surrey home here in the UK because he too left Russia, came here. And it was initially ruled a suicide, they said that he'd hanged himself, but Berezowski's family arranged for an asphyxiation expert to examine the photographs of his body and this doctor testified that the ligature mark on Berezowski's neck was not in the typical like Vhape that would suggest a hanging. He said that it looked like strangulation.

And he also noted that it was odd that the dead man had a broken rib and a cut on the back of his head. Let's keep going because there are more. So in 2012, again in Surrey, Alexander, I'm going to butcher this surname, Alexander Peripilichiny. Oh my God, that is hard. That's really hard. Alexander P., who was an exiled Russian banker, was also found dead.

Initially, it was ruled to be due to natural causes, until, and this is when it's just like so spy-thrillery, until an expert botanist from Kew Gardens, nonetheless, found the presence of a rare and incredibly deadly plant toxin from a plant known as heartbreak grass in Alexander P's stomach. I'm scared. Why does this all happen in London? I know, man. Then there was Dr Matthew Puncher, a British scientist involved in the Litvinenko case who was found in his kitchen with multiple stab wounds from two separate knives. And then the case of Scott Young, whose death prompted Heidi Blake, an investigative

journalist, to look at this pattern of strange deaths and write a book called From Russia with Blood. Scott had been a business associate of Boris Berezovsky, and in 2014 he was found impaled on the railings outside his London flat after seemingly having fallen from a fourth-floor window. All of these deaths, including the guy who was stabbed with two separate knives, all of these deaths have been ruled as accidental or suicides. Yep. Nothing like stabbing yourself to death with two different knives. One in each hand, like in hereditary. Yep. Yep. Yep.

And British police say that they have found no evidence of Russian involvement in any of the cases except for that of Alexander Litvinenko. Just odd that it's all these people

who have fled from the Russians or are here like Scott Young associated with people who have fled from the Russians. Yeah, and we definitely definitely know that the Russians

have no problem coming over and killing people. So the UK has rightfully been criticised for not responding to any of these attacks, because remember, there's 14 that we know about that have happened on British soil, with any real, and I couldn't think of the word, I put down gumption, but I feel like

that's not strong enough a word. Any real conviction, intent, just any real anything. After some of these attacks, you you know we do things like we expel a few diplomats we do a bit of sanctioning but none of this has really made much difference at all so why are we pussyfooting around and why are we pussyfooting around russia now as they fucking invade europe we are going to do updates on this we are recording this well in advance it's on the 21st of january so by the time you're listening to this, things might have substantially changed. They likely will have done. We'll do updates on Under the Duvet and maybe at the top of the second episode. So stay tuned for that. But I think what it comes down to with why Britain and the West really is so reluctant to take any

sort of action against Russia, no matter what they do, is fear and dependency. Let's be real. Russia has changed. They annexed Crimea. They literally changed the borders of Europe for the first time in like generations. And we were just like, oh, it's fear and dependency. I think it's very obvious that the West in general, but especially in London, we are super dependent on Russian energy and Russian money. There is so much Russian money in London. It especially in London, we are super dependent on Russian energy and Russian money. There is so much Russian money in London. It floods in that foreign investment. It is everywhere. And London is the powerhouse of the UK. So therefore, we just don't really want to do anything. And we've also bred ourselves into a situation where we are so dependent on Russian

energy. And spoilers, you need energy for everything. I don't know if you knew, guys. I don't know if you knew, but it is. And they've got all of it. So this seems to have left the British government with very little appetite over the years to pick a fight with the Kremlin. And it actually wasn't until 2016, so just eight years ago, when a man named Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent in Salisbury that the UK government finally started to wake up. But for the details on that case, you're going to have to wait until next week when we go back to Russian poisonings. I think the government were awake. They just had their hands over their eyes.

Yeah. They were just like, maybe they won't do it again. La la la la la. Yeah. Maybe it won't happen again. Maybe it's fine. What are the odds? Yeah. And really, with Sergei Skripal, we will see next week

the only reason they even sort of get up in arms about that one is because they use a different poison. Like I said, they're not using

Polonium-210 next week. They're using a military-grade nerve agent in fucking Salisbury. That could have killed tens of thousands of people. A nerve agent was the first time that a chemical weapon has been used in Western Europe since World War II. And, yeah, people were not having it. But that's the only reason.

It was only because of the weapon. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'll have to wait until next week to hear about that. So in the meantime, you're like, I'd like some more Red Handed, please. Well, you can have some. You can head on over to patreon.com slash red handed where you can get all sorts of extra bonus episodes. This month, we are even releasing a full length bonus episode on the doodler. Oh, yeah.

Which sounds like a shit name, but it's actually a really interesting case. It is interesting. A lot of people have asked for it so you can hop on over to Patreon to find that and if you would like to hear about more cults like we did with Scientology

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Liv, FG, Abby Haynes, Austin Sherrill, Alyssa Barrett, Marie, Marianne, Marianne, Valerie Zelko, Rachel, Jane Finn, Hooray! Thank you ever so much for supporting the show and we will see you next week for part two where we'll be going to Sol's Spring. We will indeed. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti.

It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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