How a former Russian security officer became the target of a radioactive assassination.

History · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Alexander Litvinenko, a former FSB officer who turned into a vocal critic of the Russian state, died in London after being poisoned with polonium-210. His death sparked a years-long international legal battle, eventually leading the European Court of Human Rights to hold Russia responsible for his targeted killing.

Alexander Litvinenko served as an officer within the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), where he specialized in investigating organized crime. His career took a dramatic turn in 1998 when he and several colleagues publicly accused their superiors of ordering the assassination of oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Following multiple arrests and acquittals on charges of exceeding his authority, Litvinenko fled to the United Kingdom in 2000, where he was granted asylum. In London, he reinvented himself as a journalist and consultant for British intelligence, authoring books that alleged the Russian secret services orchestrated domestic terror attacks to facilitate Vladimir Putin’s rise to power.

On November 1, 2006, Litvinenko fell suddenly ill and was hospitalized. He died on November 23 from poisoning caused by polonium-210, a rare and highly radioactive substance. A British murder investigation identified Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun as the primary suspects. While the United Kingdom sought Lugovoy’s extradition, Russia refused, citing constitutional prohibitions against extraditing its own citizens. This refusal severely strained diplomatic relations between the two nations, setting the stage for a prolonged quest for accountability led by Litvinenko’s widow, Marina.

The legal aftermath was exhaustive. In 2011, Marina Litvinenko successfully secured the right to a formal inquest into her husband’s death. A subsequent public inquiry, which concluded in 2016, determined that the murder was likely carried out by the identified suspects with the approval of Vladimir Putin and then-FSB director Nikolai Patrushev. The case reached a definitive international conclusion in 2021, when the European Court of Human Rights ruled in Carter v Russia that the state was responsible for the killing, ordering the payment of €100,000 in damages. The incident remains a landmark case in the history of state-sponsored espionage and extrajudicial violence.

General information, not professional advice. Spotted an error? Flag the card or see corrections and complaints.

Intellect Plus is a visual educational discovery platform for exploring fascinating facts and ideas. Brain Food, Not Brain Rot. What is Intellect Plus?

Related

• A lethal nerve agent left on a park bench triggered a global diplomatic crisis.
• The Invisible Poison: How Polonium-210 Became a Modern Weapon
• The mystery of a car bombing that killed a Russian ideologue
• The spy who warned the world of a nuclear first strike
• The disputed cause of death for Russian dissident Alexei Navalny
• The unexpected death of a comic book icon
• How a Brooklyn longshoreman became the most feared executioner in American organized crime history
• Baby Face Nelson: The Violent Criminal Who Killed More FBI Agents Than Any Other
• Before the term hijacking existed, criminals in the sky were called air pirates.
• The first political assassination by firearm was a brutal, state-sponsored act of fanaticism.
• The most successful pirate of the Golden Age was a teetotaler who hated gambling.
• Why a 16th-century patricide turned a Roman noblewoman into an enduring cultural icon.

More in Crime · More in History · Latest · A–Z · All topics