Vladimir Putin ‘probably approved’ 2006 London hit: UK probe

Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably approved” the killing of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, a British inquiry into his agonising death by radiation poisoning found Thursday.

Litvinenko, a prominent Kremlin critic, died three weeks after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium at a London hotel in 2006. Two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, were identified by the British police as prime suspects. The findings of the 300-page report pile pressure on Britain to act against Russia. Home secretary Theresa May is due to outline the government reaction in a statement to Parliament later on Thursday. “The FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr (Nikolai) Patrushev and also by President Putin,” the report said.

Patrushev is a former director of the FSB and has been a key security minister since 2008. “I am sure that Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun placed the polonium-210 in the teapot at the Pine Bar on November 1, 2006,” judge Robert Owen, the inquiry’s chairman, said in the report.