Alec Guinness, where are you now that we really need you?

Litvinenko had a dossier containing information damaging to someone. In fact he had many dossiers, as well as an unfortunate habit of making a multitude of contradictory claims to a multitude of people about a multitude of other people to whom his dossiers might be damaging. Former KGB agent Yuri Shvets, now living in the U.S. under the protection of the FBI, volunteered his version to investigators from Scotland Yard last week:

'I believe I have a lead that can explain what happened,' Shvets confirmed last week before he was interviewed as a witness in the presence of FBI agents. Shvets, who lives in Virginia and is now apparently in hiding, declined to elaborate. However, a business associate of Shvets, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Observer that Litvinenko had claimed in the weeks before his death that he possessed a dossier containing damaging revelations about the Kremlin and its relationship with the Yukos oil company. The associate claimed that Shvets compiled the dossier.

Yukos was once owned by the oligarch Mikhail Khordorkovsky, who is serving seven years in a Russian jail for tax evasion. His supporters say he was convicted as a result of a show trial orchestrated by the Kremlin.

The claims that Litvinenko had a dossier containing damaging information about the Kremlin echo separate claims he made to Svetlichnaja, who interviewed the former KGB agent earlier this year for a book she is writing about Chechnya.

But the scholar Julia Svetlichnaja's account of her dealings with Litvinenko, as recounted in the second and fifth links above, suggests a far less clear and direct trajectory. While he was undoubtedly feeding her confidential documents from FSB (one of the successors to KGB) and other sources, she was subjected as well to Litvinenko's eccentric rants and sudden leaps "from one exotic story to another":

I started to wonder whether meeting Litvinenko was a waste of time. He told me shamelessly of his blackmailing plans aimed at Russian oligarchs. 'They have got enough, why not to share? I will do it officially,' he said.

Svetlichnaja, a politics student at the University of Westminster, says Litvinenko claimed he had access to Russian intelligence documents containing information on individuals and companies that had fallen foul of the Kremlin.

'He told me he was going to blackmail or sell sensitive information about all kinds of powerful people, including oligarchs, corrupt officials and sources in the Kremlin,' she said. 'He mentioned a figure of £10,000 that they would pay each time to stop him broadcasting these FSB documents. Litvinenko was short of money and was adamant that he could obtain any files he wanted.'

Litvinenko's access to such documents could have made him an enemy of both big business interests and the Kremlin. However, his claims are almost impossible to verify and some political analysts have gone as far as to dismiss him as a fantasist.

Yes, to some degree, it seems, a fantasist ... Except he is now a dead fantasist. It is very difficult to get around that dead body, especially given that it is dead by such sophisticated means.

There are other dead bodies and now apparently contaminated bodies that figure in Litvinenko's story. He was a friend and possibly a confidant of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot to death in Moscow in October. A British security analyst familiar with the turf she would have been investigating casts doubt on any automatic conclusion that the Kremlin would have ordered these murders:

Security analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, who met Mr Litvinenko several times, said the media focus on the Kremlin was "lazy" and bore the hallmarks of a John Le Carre novel.

"We have to put this in a historical context," he said.

"Litvinenko's last job within the FSB was heading up the anti-corruption unit and he discovered a lot of corruption there and made a lot of enemies within the KGB."

When Yeltsin broke the KGB into different agencies such as the FSB and the SVR, the majority of its members stayed on but some went into the Duma and a third group went into legitimate business, he said.

But a "murky bunch" went into what was known as the Russian mafia.

"My own belief, and this is speculation, is that it's not inconceivable that Anna Politkovskaya in her search for murderers within the Russian bank system discovered the contract killings were these former KGB people.

"She was killed and if Litvinenko indeed was privy to her investigations then it could well be that they will emerge as his killers."

Although the sophisticated nature of the poison suggested it could have come from the state, there was no motive, he said.

"There was no benefit to Putin or Russian intelligence services to have a highly publicised operation like this."

And despite the continued claims linking Putin, diplomatic relationships between the UK and Russia were unlikely to be affected, he said.

So now we have a "murky bunch," aka the Russian mafia. We also have the four gentlemen known to have met Litvinenko on 1 November, the day he became ill, three Russian businessmen who came forward to protest their innocence at once, and the Italian security consultant Mario Scaramella, an interesting character in his own right, consultant to the Mitrokhin Commission, which has investigated KGB activities in Italy:

International 'security consultant' Mario Scaramella, who joined Litvinenko for the now infamous clandestine meeting in a London sushi bar, headed an organisation which tracked dumped nuclear waste, including Soviet nuclear missiles left over from the Cold War. ...

• He has a deep knowledge of nuclear materials and their whereabouts around the globe.

• Although he describes himself as an environmentalist, he has detailed knowledge of the activities of Russian agents.

• Some of the institutions listed on his impressive CV appear to have no record of him, prompting questions about a career involving a large number of posts around the globe. ...

Scaramella has now also tested positive for polonium contamination, as have Litvinenko's wife and children, although none of them has yet shown signs of radiation sickness. British police on their way to Moscow are understood to be interested in further unnamed Russian businessmen, and have chatted with Boris Berezovsky, Litvinenko's sponsor and neighbour in Muswell Hill. (I once lived in Muswell Hill, actually, but I have not thus far been informed that I am on the list of persons of interest.) Oh, and I should mention Yegor Gaidar, appointed acting prime minister by Boris Yeltsin for a time in 1992, who became mysteriously ill during a trip to Ireland on 28 November and remains in serious but stable condition, now back in Moscow.

Even that is not the full cast of characters, nor the complete trail of polonium contamination, which now involves a number of British planes, hotel rooms, restaurants, one football stadium, and a public alert to thousands of British Airways passengers (though none of them is believed to be in serious danger). I refer dedicated researchers to the Guardian/Observer archives, now growing quite deep in details of this story.

Back to the duelling interpretations, though, especially of that "murky bunch" that emerged in Russia (and, apparently, in London) in the 1990s. In most columns or editorials written to the subject over the last couple of weeks, we can detect one of two main ideological commitments, or at least sources of nervousness. The first and continuing impulse of many commentators in Britain, anxious to reinforce Tony Blair's anxiety to maintain good relations with President Putin, was and remains to wave vaguely at the "murky bunch," to assure us that we will never know who is traipsing about leaking Polonium-210 all over London or why, but really, how can that matter when major-power relations are in the balance? Tim Hames in today's Times of London is a typical example:

What can be asserted is that it was as much about events in London as in Moscow. If the “lid has been lifted” on anything by this bizarre tale it is the extent to which our capital city has become the centre for intrigue focused on Russia. Londongrad is home to a host of billionaires and their associates who are either still in favour with Mr Putin yet seek the shelter of a alternative base if that relationship ends, or are sworn foes of those who occupy the Kremlin. In that respect, it is hardly surprising that a substantial number of FSB intelligence agents are located in this country. The crucial difference between now and the Cold War, nevertheless, is that their primary task is to spy on other Russians, not to seek out secrets from deep inside Westminster or Whitehall.

Which explains precisely nothing, of course. It is probably true, but does it really not matter that "a substantial number of FSB intelligence agents" are in London on the trail of ... something? Sniffy English pundits may think they can short-circuit discussion by pretending that these incidents are just something that those distateful foreigners do amongst themselves, but they are still not addressing the question: distateful foreigners or not, what would those "billionaires and their associates" be up to that would draw FSB agents to London to track them? (Aren't the English upper classes charming, though? Homegrown terrorists come from "Londonistan." Homegrown spooks and crooks come from "Londongrad.")

Eric Margolis sets out the competing view of the old Cold Warriors, clearly and entertainly, as usual. Margolis takes pride in being a good reporter, which has made him such a powerful voice of dissent in the North American msm on the Middle East, but for that reason people often forget that he is no friend of anything approaching a left view of the world. Margolis remembers the Smershniki, and clearly has no trouble believing Litvinenko's dying charge against Putin as the author of his assassination. Although mistaken in some details (Polonium-210 does not need to be transported in lead containers, and would not be detected by a geiger counter), Margolis's column is a helpful summary of much of the relevant history and of a particular world-view:

As the Soviet Union began crumbling, I was the first western journalist given access to KGB’s top brass, headquarters, and archives. `KGB is a powerful force behind modernization and reform,’ I reported from Moscow that year, adding that KGB’s best and brightest officers from the elite First Chief Directorate had decided to abandon the communists and seize control of business and government.

The First Directorate’s agents, including up-and-comer Vladimir Putin, were Russia’s best-educated, most sophisticated, and disciplined citizens. They knew communism had wrecked Russia. KGB chiefs told me in 1989 they wanted a `Russian Pinochet’ – a strongman who would bring in capitalism and make Russia and Russians work.

Today, two decades later, former KGB officers run the Kremlin, Russia’s government, and much of its industry. Russia got its tough General Pinochet in the form of the even tougher KGB officer, Vladimir Putin.

As the USSR collapsed, a group of sharp-minded financial opportunists called `oligarchs’ grabbed control of its industries and resources. Led by Boris Berezhovsky, they formed the core support for Boris Yeltsin’s stumbling regime - backed by huge amounts of covert US finance that was laundered through London and German banks. Another London-based Russian exile, billionaire Roman Abramovitch, has been accused by the British media of having been a conduit for this secret funding. He denies the charges.

KGB – divided in 1991 into the foreign SVR and internal FSB – viewed Berezovsky and other oligarchs as traitors and foreign agents. The fact that most of the oligarchs were Jewish intensified the animosity of the traditionally anti-Semitic Russians.

It is worth noting, I think, that both those in the West who would blame Putin and those who are working so strenuously to exonerate him share one conviction: that the Russians are somehow, inexplicably, Other, not us. Either it is just their problem (those who would exonerate Putin) or it is a problem of theirs that we have to worry about (the Cold Warriors), but it is never our problem, nothing to do with us, no, not us.

Here is a fine if unhelpful articulation of that attitude from another old Cold Warrior, Sir Max Hastings, once of the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph:

Why, having tasted freedom and democracy, should they wish to return to the murderous practices of Stalinism? How can they acquiesce in Putin's restoration of tyranny? Here is a nation suddenly granted wealth which might enable its people to become prosperous social democrats like us.

Instead, to our bewilderment, Russia is institutionalising a state gangster culture which promises repression and ultimate economic failure for itself, fear and alienation from the rest of the world. We hear of few Russians at home or abroad who have achieved wealth through honest toil. Instead, the tools of success in Putin's universe are corruption, violence, vice and licensed theft on a colossal scale.

"Complex feelings of insecurity, of envy and resentment towards Europe ... define the Russian national consciousness," wrote Orlando Figes, the outstanding British historian of the country. Underpinning all Putin's dealings with the outside world is a demand for respect, a rage at perceived western condescension. This is shared by his people, in a fashion which goes far to explain why so many support his policies.

Well, maybe. Maybe that explains Vladimir Putin to an ethnocentric English lord: the vulgar brutes are acting out merely because they, well, envy our freedoms, as it were. And don't get me wrong: I don't doubt that Vladimir Putin is a vulgar brute, not that I'm going to document that here, although I could.

Scroll down a little, though, through the comments replying to Sir Max's huffing and puffing. You'll see there yet another view, a much more straightforward and practical explanation of what has been driving Putin as he watches the "murky bunches" who were so well placed to hand over "the carcass" of Russia to the Western "hyenas," as Sir Max's correspondent puts it so interestingly. It's a good comment. It made more sense to me than almost anything else I have read about this story so far.

I think that means, though, that we are missing a major part of this story. The Western hyenas: which ones in particular are we talking about, and what have they been up to lately? If the purpose was "to obliterate, to punish, and to discourage others," then the act makes sense only if there are others who can make sense of that purpose, and who know that it was a message aimed directly at them.

And a wee bonus: While this report from the current issue of Maclean's is written in predictably melodramatic style, it is nevertheless an interesting reminder of how tense relations between Russia and the West remain. Read between the lines, and you should be able to locate some of President Putin's sore spots.

Thanks to the gang at breadnroses.ca, who have been chewing over this story for a couple of weeks.

And Sir Alec, wherever you are now, I hope you know: we always really needed you.