Steve LeVine - Putin's Labyrinth

When his father, ValterValter Litvinenko, quoted in Poison Plot: The Killing of a Spy, CNN, December 4, 2006.

“expecting an attack, an assassination”Yevgeni Limarev, interview with Red TV (Moscow), December 23, 2006.

“Are you in town to see”Author interview with Felshtinsky.

“transfer 100,000 pounds”Quote and detail from Spiegel Online, December 11, 2006.

“I’m about to get information”Akhmed Zakayev, speaking in VPRO documentary of 2007.

Litvinenko had served as a sourceMaxim Litvinenko, Alexander Litvinenko’s brother, quoted by Reuters, January 5, 2007.

Scaramella handed overThe e-mail was provided to Scaramella by Yevgeny Limarev, a Russian émigré who lives in France.

who just the night beforeAuthor interview with Berezovsky.

The two had agreed thatLitvinenko’s cut is according to Andrei Lugovoi, quoted by Mark Franchetti in The Sunday Times.

“This is the No. 1 security issue”Peter Castenfelt quoted in USA Today, July 28, 2006. The ads appeared in the newspapers on the previous day.

He turned into the Pine BarDetail on Norberto Andrade and the serving of Litvinenko’s tea from Evening Standard, November 6, 2007. Detail on the drinks and cigar smoking from Spiegel Online, December 11, 2006. Detail on Lugovoi’s family’s plans from The Washington Post, December 13, 2006.

He went to bedDetail on Litvinenko’s condition from Marina Litvinenko interview with Natalia Gevorkian, Kommersant, December 21, 2006. In terms of the poisoning itself, the interview was, in my opinion, the most complete of dozens in which Marina participated. In its main points, it coincided with the other interviews she gave. Since the thrust of her comments was virtually identical in all her interviews, I relied on those published accounts and skipped over the subject of the poisoning entirely when we twice met, so as to avoid repetition. This allowed me to cover topics that other interviewers had not.

“Look,” he told the reporterAlexander Litvinenko interviewed by BBC Russian Service, November 11, 2006.

“It was so strange”Marina Litvinenko interview with Kommersant.

“Ex-spy’s poisoning bears hallmarks” The Daily Telegraph, November 21, 2006.

“Different name, same tactics” Guardian, November 21, 2006.

“Exact Cause of Ex-K.G.B. Agent’s” The New York Times, November 22, 2006.

“looked just like a ghost”Andrei Nekrasov, quoted in VPRO documentary of 2007.

“like a seventy-year-old”Goldfarb and Litvinenko, Death of a Dissident, 329.

“Oh, Marinochka, I love you”Marina Litvinenko interview with Kommersant.

“Father, I’ve converted. I’m a Muslim”Valter Litvinenko quoted in VPRO documentary of 2007.

“Come quickly”Marina Litvinenko interview with Kommersant.

“You have shown yourself to”Alexander Goldfarb reading Alexander Litvinenko’s statement, November 23, 2006.

“You have to understand that”Marina Litvinenko interview with Kommersant.

“Marina, this is Andrei Lugovoi”Ibid.

“He joined the FSB from”Author interview with Josef Linder, April 18, 2007.

“Negative. The most negative.”Author interview with Mikhail Golovatov, April 17, 2007.

“offer no indication that this”Vladimir Putin, official transcript of news conference following a Russia–European Union summit meeting, November 24, 2006.

Novelist Martin Cruz SmithCruz Smith quoted in The Wall Street Journal Europe, December 29, 2006.

“Let’s get one thing”Author interview with Boris Volodarsky, February 28, 2007.

“a typical KGB operation”Author interview with Oleg Gordievsky.

“It’s quite possible each guy”Author interview with Professor Nick Priest. I interviewed Priest numerous times in person and by phone. This interview took place February 15, 2007.

“That’s Russian”Author interview with a former MI6 agent who asked not to be identified by name because of a condition placed upon him when retiring from the agency, February 9, 2007.

“Lugovoi has often asked me”Mark Franchetti, The Sunday Times (London), November 25, 2007.

As Vladimir Putin’s presidencyDetail on the dive from National Geographic News online, August 3, 2007.

“The incumbent president is an”Dmitri Medvedev quoted in Financial Times, March 24, 2008.

As the story goesSome said that in effect Putin himself was chairman of Gazprom, pulling the strings behind the scenes. That may have been true—outsiders could not know for certain what went on in the Kremlin.

“no state can be pleased”Dmitri Medvedev quoted in Financial Times, March 24, 2008.

But Putin remarked publiclyQuoted in the Daily Telegraph, March 3, 2008.

And Medvedev agreedQuoted in Financial Times, March 24, 2008.

“Russia needs the maximum”Dmitri Medvedev quoted in Financial Times, March 24, 2008.

“It was completely incredible”Quotes from author interview with Marina Litvinenko.

“Marina is making money from”Quote from Sonya Litvinenko interview with Anna Chernyakovskaya, author’s assistant.

“to speak with her right”Author interview with Marina Litvinenko.

By March 2008, MarinaDetail and quote from Marina Litvinenko from The Times (London), March 27, 2008.

In the same vein, Alex GoldfarbDetail and quote from Alex Goldfarb from Reuters, February 28, 2008.

“He had no reason to”Ilya Bulavinov, Kommersant, April 10, 2007.

“I couldn’t decide if he”Yelena Tregubova quoted by BBC News online, November 21, 2003.

“They would have found a way”Yelena Tregubova quoted by the Daily Mail (London), April 4, 2008.

But her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta Detail and quote from Novaya Gazeta, April 2, 2008.

Before Anna’s murder, a doctorDetail on how Vera decided to name her daughter from author’s interview with Vera Politkovskaya.

This book is largely the result of interviews conducted in Moscow and London during 2007, buttressed by reporting during the eleven years I was based in the former Soviet Union, from 1992 to 2003. I relied heavily on archival material—books, contemporarily written articles and films—for the historical passages and also to inform the account of present events. The deaths described in the book are among the most-chronicled events of our time, and I am grateful for the excellent work of colleagues. The sources for the quotations I have used are indicated in the notes, and work on which I relied informatively is listed below.

Albats, Yevgenia. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia Past, Present and Future. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1994.