‘Vladimir Putin probably approved spy’s murder’

President Vladimir Putin probably approved a 2006 Russian intelligence operation to murder ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London, a British inquiry concluded on Thursday, prompting a row with Moscow.

Russia, which had declined to cooperate in the inquiry, described Britain’s handling of the case as opaque and biased.

The Kremlin on Thursday dismissed the results of a British inquiry into the poisoning death of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, calling it possibly “a joke” after a London judge pointed the finger at Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Putin who fled Russia for Britain exactly six years to the day before he was poisoned, died after drinking green tea laced with the rare radioactive isotope at London’s Millennium Hotel.

An inquiry led by senior British judge Robert Owen found that former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi and another Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the killing as part of an operation probably directed by Russia’s Federal Security Service, the main heir to the Soviet-era KGB.

“The FSB operation to kill Mr Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev, then head of the FSB, and also by President Putin,” Mr Owen said.

“I have concluded that there is a strong probability that when Mr Lugovoi poisoned Mr Litvinenko, he did so under the direction of the FSB. I have further concluded that Mr Kovtun was also acting under FSB direction,” he said.

The death of Litvinenko marked a post-Cold War low point in Anglo-Russian relations, and ties have never recovered, marred further by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The British government said it would summon Russia’s ambassador.

The image of Litvinenko lying on his bed at London’s University College Hospital, cadaverous and having lost his hair, was emblazoned across British and other Western newspapers and later shown to the inquiry. He took over three weeks to die. Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, whose persistence led to the inquiry being held, called for Russian spies to be kicked out of Britain and for sanctions against Russia.

“I’m calling immediately for exclusion from the UK of all Russian intelligence operatives whether from the FSB, who murdered Sasha, or from other Russian agencies based in the London embassy,” she said outside London’s Royal Courts of Justice.

“I’m also calling for the imposition of targeted economic sanctions and travel bans against named individuals, including Mr Patrushev and Mr Putin,” she said, adding that the British government had promised action.

The Kremlin has always denied any involvement but the claim that Mr Putin directly ordered a killing of an opponent with a radioactive isotope in a major Western capital provoked immediate censure from Moscow.

Russia’s foreign ministry said what it called Britain’s politicised, biased and opaque handling of the Litvinenko case had clouded relations.

From his deathbed, Litvinenko told detectives he believed Mr Putin had directly ordered his killing. The Kremlin dismissed that accusation at the time as absurd.

The judge said he was sure Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun had placed the polonium 210 in a teapot.at the Millennium Hotel’s Pine Bar.