Why Would Putin Order Litvinenko's Assassination?
What gives weight to the rogue-killing theory is that senior intelligence analysts are baffled why Russian President Vladimir Putin would order the killing of Mr Litvinenko, whose allegations that Mr Putin had staged bombings in Moscow to foment the Chechen war had made little impact in Russia.
The answer to the baffling analytic question is multi-part.
First, Anna Politskovkaya's assassination was a last straw for the international press, as the number of Russian journalists murdered for doing their jobs in Russia and whose cases suffered wilful neglect afterward, had reached a critical mass. Therefore, ignoring Litvinenko's investigation of connections between Putin and Politskovskaya's murder would have an impact on Putin. He was likely successful in discrediting Litvinenko at home for the book, making him seem a wild conspiracy theorist. That's not likely to succeed regarding Politskovskaya, whose killing brought protests in Russia.
It is exactly because President Putin has suffered few repercussions for presiding over a known, yet unofficial policy of assassination (remember, the Russian Duma passed laws authorizing the use of force abroad against those who are deemed Russia's enemies) that he would send an assassin to murder Litvinenko.
To Putin, Litvinenko was an enemy of Russia for telling the story of a false pretext for the war against Chechnya created by FSB bombings of Russian citizens and buildings. When Litvinenko got closer to a more believable spot, one that may even make Russians reconsider Litvinenko's book, it got too hot.
It is precisely because analysts would ask the question why would he order Litvinenko's assassination that he could blame it on rogue elements of the FSB. It is the handy-dandy plausible deniability principle at work. And that is often what "rogue" units are for, to provide politicians with plausible deniability. And yet, what "rogue" elements of the FSB does Mr. Putin not control where he has been able to control all else and consolidate power? And, why did he not already bring these rogues to jail in cuffs after killing so many journalists, bankers, and dissidents? Why such slow and fruitless investigations?
Putin de-facto controls these elements. He can use his de jure control to hunt down the rogues that don't help him, and effectively bring them to justice if they did what he did not want. Or, he could terminate their lives.
But there is also another element to the killing done under the Putin regime, which is a symbolic deterrent killing warning others not to venture where the victim did, or they will suffer the regime's lethal vengeance.
In this case, the regime appears to have used Polonium-210, a poisonous radioactive metal first discovered by Marie Curie in the home country of the famous assassination target of 1981, Pope John Paul II. Was the choice a message? The Italian panel investigator, Judge Mario Scaramella (whose panel found that the USSR was behind Pope John Paul II's assassination attempt beyond a reasonable doubt) was the one who met with Litvinenko at the Sushi restaurant to compare notes (I assume). Scaramella would learn from Litvinenko more about how the USSR accomplished the attempted assassination operation and who could have knowledge about it in today's regime. That info would be radioactive itself.
It is possible that Litvinenko had the ability to go further for Scaramella and find out actual names of those FSB and former KGB involved in the 1981 papal assassination attempt, since KGB documents are well guarded as apparently non-historical documents by the FSB under Putin.
And if KGB documents from the era of the USSR are not historical documents for public viewing, perhaps the USSR is no longer just a subject of history, but an active, zealous and growing regime.
