They Gave Him Radu…

The Soviet Union lost the cold war against the Occident, disintegrated, went through a violent identity crisis and finally stabilized in a relatively diminished form, called the Russian Federation. Its present President is a former KGB spy, Vladimir Putin.
Theoretically, the present Russia is a modern democratic state that doesn’t have anything to do with the communism of the previous era. In fact, there are more and more people talking about a certain kind of dictatorship in Kremlin. The latest abominable crimes that targeted businessmen, journalists and other important persons known for their opposition towards the Putin regime helps us take a look inside a empire that, instead of leaving the horrors of the past behind, seems to outtake them.

On of the most known journalists in Russia, Anna Politkovskaya, the author of several accusing books about the Russian politics, was murdered not long ago. A few days ago, one of the prosecutors taking care of this case, former KGB Agent Alexander Litvinenko, also died of a terrible death. The Polonium 210 discovered in his body is an extremely rare radioactive substance, 250 times more deadly than cyanide! Litvinenko had met with several Russian agents in London and they had all eaten in a sushi restaurant. The substance that was probably placed in his food on this occasion was so strong that the bar, the hotel room where he lived and all the things he had touched got radioactively contaminated. It took the substance only a few days to destroy the cells of his medulla, to make his hair and teeth to fall. The agonizing agent dictated one last letter in which he accused President Putin himself. "The bastard", as he had called him, is still applying the barbarian and inhuman methods of his predecessors.

Of course, Litvinenko was not an angel. Former KGB agent in its turn, member of the new "democratic" security service of Russia, he left for England a few years ago. Here, he started telling the secrets of his former activity that involved recruiting assassins and mafia businessmen to act for the Putin Government. His last assignment was the assassination of Russian billionaire Berezovsky. Therefore, the scenarios of his murder are multiple. However, all of them lead to a Russian reality so cruel that we naturally think of the times when Stalin used to rule Russia. We shouldn’t forget that Polonium 210 cannot be bought! It exists only in the great nuclear reactors of the world. Therefore, it is almost impossible for certain people, even if they are important mafia members, to have conceived the extraordinary assassination method. The use of this substance is like an accusing finger pointed towards Kremlin.

The idea of using radioactive substances for political crimes isn’t new. Pacepa’s "Red Horizons" allows us to hear Ceausescu shouting towards one of his dissidents: "Let’s give him Radu!", a macabre slang for "Let’s irradiate him!". However, the British prosecutors investigating Litvinenko’s case have stated there haven’t been any precedents similar to this one. Actually, the unhappy KGB member aged 43 has swallowed a mini-atomic bomb.
If one can ever prove the involvement of Vladimir Putin in this, Russia’s image will get a lot darker than it is now.