The fate of the president

Information from London, where the high court finds out the circumstances of the death of Alexander Litvinenko and determines who is responsible for her, is becoming more and more intriguing. At the end of April 2015, the materials of the court hearings were completely published, including a document known as the Victor Ivanov Dossier . Prepared by the former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, who was mainly resettled in 1993 in the United States, the dossier makes it clear what seemed secret for the time being.

In the early 1990s, this document says, Viktor Ivanov, who was then the head of the department for combating the smuggling of the St. Petersburg Directorate of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, soon renamed the Federal Service Service, helped the leader of the Tambov organized crime group Kumarin, aka Barsukov, to privatize the St. Petersburg Sea Port, which the bandits used to transport for transportation Colombian cocaine in Europe. And Putin, at that time deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, was aware of this operation. According to Shvets, Litvinenko received this information thanks to his work in the FSC/FSB, where he was engaged in the fight against organized crime groups. With the help of his partner in Russia, who was familiar with Ivanov’s activities at that time, Shvets asked for this data - and they were confirmed.

Shvets met Litvinenko in the spring of 2002. At that time, at the request of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, he was engaged in the decoding of tape recordings made by the guard in the office of the then President of Ukraine Kuchma, and Boris Berezovsky financed this work. To discuss the details of the project, Shvets flew to London, where he met Litvinenko. In the summer of 2006, Litvinenko’s relationship with Berezovsky was complicated , and he had to look for new sources of income. Shvets promised that if Litvinenko finds customers in need of information about possible partners in Russia, he would receive the agreed part of the fee. Litvinenko quickly found the customer - Titon's advisory company, which is engaged in an assessment of risks for companies leading business in Russia. The first order from the Tition was the preparation of a dossier for four people, including Viktor Ivanov. This is the plot of this story.

The “object of study” itself, Viktor Ivanov, for many years closely connected with the then chief of the FSB Patrushev and the then speaker of the State Duma Gryzlov, was one of the most powerful people in Russia. His friendship with Gryzlov began in his student years - they studied together at the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute of Communications. And Gryzlov, in turn, was sitting at the same school desk with Patrushev. So there was a close union of three "security forces", which became the core of one of the most powerful Moscow centers of force in the 2000s.

Nevertheless, the main source of influence of Viktor Ivanov is his close relationship with Putin. In 1994, he left the FSB and, on the recommendation of Putin, was appointed head of the department of administrative bodies of the St. Petersburg City Hall, who oversaw all law enforcement agencies of the city. In 1998, Putin, who became the director of the FSB, appointed Ivanov as the head of the Office of his own security department - to a key post that allows you to control the entire personnel of the FSB and get rid of the leadership of the leadership. Later, Ivanov headed the FSB economic security department, called, among other things, to control the largest oligarchic groups, and in 2000-2008 he worked in the presidential administration. The crown of his career was the position of assistant to the president for working with personnel. In other words, in the jurisdiction of this person is the entire highest Russian nomenclature. Only a very trusted person could appoint Putin to such a post.

On September 19, 2006, "Ivanov's dossier" was sent to the customer. And immediately after that, Litvinenko made a mistake, which, apparently, was worth his life. On the 20th of September, he transported the “dossier” to Andrei Lugovoi, explaining this by the desire to create a network of informants in Russia with his help, capable of collecting information regarding potential partners for Western companies. "Ivanov's dossier", according to Litvinenko, was supposed to serve as a model of how to draw up such documents.

Litvinenko completely trusted the meadow. And in vain. Three weeks after the “Ivanov Dossier” shipping, Lugovoy appeared in London with Dmitry Kovtun and so many Polonium-210, which would be enough to guaranteed the destruction of several hundred inhabitants of the British capital. It is still unclear whether the meadow was a long -standing agent of Russian state security, which was introduced into the encirclement of Berezovsky, or was recruited after he received from Litvinenko the “Ivanov Dossig” - a significant reason for a ruthless reprisal. It seems that the "Ivanov dossier" was the last straw that overwhelmed the Kremlin patience. In the second half of October and the first days of November 2006, Lugovoi and Kovtun appeared three times in London with Polonia-210, trying to poison them Litvinenko. The third attempt was successful.

It seems that there is a time when even those political figures who are still tuned for a certain compromise with the Kremlin begin to experience awkwardness from further communication with the top of the Russian authorities

Is it possible to consider the murder of Litvinenko immediately after the "Ivanov dossier" appeared in Moscow, by chance? It is unlikely. Rather, this is evidence that explosive information about Ivanov’s connection - and through him, apparently, Putin himself, with the Tambov group, corresponded to reality. The Kremlin could well have a question-what to do with a former FSB officer who professionally developed organized criminal groups in the "dashing nineties", what does he already know or is about to become known? The well -known formula of the Stalinist time "there is no man - there is no problem" seemed an obvious answer. In this case, this formula, however, did not work. Having eliminated Litvinenko, the organizers of his murders created problems for themselves, the scale of which begin to clear up only now.

It is unlikely that in the West they still did not know who is behind the poisoning of Litvinenko. If they could not affirm with one hundred percent confidence, then they certainly guessed. There were enough grounds. Take at least the fact that the direct performers-meadow and Kovtun-had neither their own motives to eliminate Litvinenko, nor the opportunity to get the polonium-210 without the help of Russian state bodies. Not to mention the fact that the methods well known to scientists allow us to establish where the Polonius was specifically produced, which was poisoned by Litvinenko, and so on.

However, until recently, the political elites of the West were in no hurry to dot I. It seemed to them that with Putin it can be dealt with that the Ukrainian adventure is either a random zigzag of Russian politics, or the result of the fact that the West did not take into account certain life interests of Russia. So, they believed in the Western capitals, it is not the time to pull the dirty laundry of the Kremlin inhabitants and affect the publicly delicate stories of their activities. But the inquiry in London testifies: the situation is changing. If as a result, the responsibility of the Russian ruling elite for political murder is legally established, which can also be qualified as an act of nuclear terrorism, then Ivanov, Putin and God (or the Devil) know who else can be not just non -smoking characters, but also replenish the list of international criminals with his names.

It seems that the time comes when even those political figures who are still tuned to a certain compromise with the Kremlin begin to experience awkwardness from further communication with the top of the Russian authorities. The question is, what will follow in awkwardness? The hero of the popular Soviet movie in a similar situation remarked: "They will put you, but you do not steal ..."

Yuri Fedorov-Military-Political Expert