But the man was in touch with many people in his campaign of exposure of the services and methods he used to work for and with. He had even travelled to Georgia. So it would only be a matter of time before one of these interfaces with the shadowy world he moved in would enable those who wanted to get rid of him to get a fix on him. It could have been Organized Crime in Russia (one of his areas of expertise), other officials in the FSB (he was in the FSB anti-corruption unit), or Government departments connected with anything from Chechnya to Oligarchs.
The choice of assassination tool however is the key. It is a warning. You can't be me, I'm taken
Well.. it really seems effective then... I had no information about the british actively protecting him, good to know.
And finally, there are two completely different pictures coming out about the guy, one is the "he was exposing", the otheris soj's one of an obscure, radical, thug ex-spy. Can both be correct. A thug ex-spy doing vendetta?
Just wondering.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
Streetwise as he was, he chose always public places for meetings. This warning says that even in public we can get you - whoever 'we' might be.
He also had, apparently, 15 dossiers of evidence about some of the plots that he was involved in - including assassinations. I assume he has been debriefed on all of these by the Brits. They would protect him for exactly this inofrmation. But it may be these dossiers are some kind of fail-safe that is often used by people with information under threat ie "if I am killed there is a mechanism to release these to the public". I don't think the British security services would want that. Such information is more powerful when it's detail not known - keep the other side guessing.
Boris Berezovsky (Platon Elenin) was one of these targets as covered, I suspect, by the dossiers. Boris has been paying for Litvinenko's living in London and according to one report shelled out half a million for just one press conference involving flying dozens of journalists from Moscow. You can't be me, I'm taken
If you wanted to send a message to your opponents, or keep your current employees in line, then this is a fairly good method, if you have a certain lack of morals. another thing about this is that it is such a bizzare method, the media would have to be actively prevented from reporting on this, so if you wanted to send a message, then this method lets you use the entire media as a megaphone.
Both of the two competing theories could be correct, it depends on how fractured internally the FSB is. he could be a member of one faction, who has got to the situation where another faction is beginning to see him as a threat. The fact that he has left may be part of an obvious "the west"(i know i'm using it again) versus the FSB game. where in his mind and internally to the FSB it could appear to be part of the faction A versus faction B game.
On the other hand have another theory that can't be ruled out, if the man has been planted with false information (that he dosn't know is false) then induced to defect. Then killing him would reinforce the reliability of the information that he has passed on.
We are working with a very limited set of information, one of several groups of people have killed a man with an obscure but horrifying method, Beyond that all is speculation. Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
It can certainly be a faction fight...
BUt of course, the most intriguing thing here, it is the involvement of Berzoski and the british secret service at the same time. This last item makes me guess that things are much more complciated that pure killing becasue he was learning too much about Anna murder in Moscow.
There must be certainly more than this...I have to close with your last apragraph. "one of several group have killed a man with an obscure and horrifying method".. beyond that.. jsut pure spy novel speculation.
You note the involvement of the secret service, and Brezhoski, and if you want to stretch that a bit further you could add an entire cast of assorted spooks and crooks who can be summoned up with motive with no problem whatsoever.
I think I probably prefer your versionof my last paragraph. Life should consist in at least fifty percent pure waste of time, and the rest doing what you please.
