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I can't find my copy. Does anyone remember what the radioactive poison was in that novel?
Politically speaking, I can't understand why Putin would do this. Litvinenko wasn't making much of an impact on the world's attitude towards Putin BEFORE he died.
And Gaidar had become an academic. Why go after an academic? That's insane. There's no upside to killing Gaidar for Putin at all.
I think it was a miracle that Gaidar was not assassinated when he was working under Yeltsin. But then he had power. He has no power now.
As far as silencing critics -- there is no possible criticism Litvinenko could have leveled at Putin that would have damaged Putin as much as the suspicion for Litvinenko's murder is damaging Putin now.
When they call Litvinenko a "dissident" -- remember this was a guy who willingly joined the KGB during Soviet times and worked in counter-intelligence. Meaning he spied on other spies. That's a job for a particular kind of person. One who is so good at deception, he can deceive professional deceivers.
He's a far cry from traditional Soviet political dissidents like Andre Sakharov or Larisa Bogoraz. I shudder to think how they'd feel sharing this title with a KGB man.
His house in London was purchased for him by billionaire Boris Berezovsky, and if Berezovsky counts as a "dissident," then so does Ken Lay.
This is a very intriguing novel and I hope some day we get to read the end.
