Thanks to the information received from the former employee of the Russian Public TV (ORT), the AIA managed to fill in a series of lacunas in biography of one of the main and the most mysterious personages of Alexander Litvinenko’s case…
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| Andrei Lugovoy |
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Week and a half after ex-lieutenant colonel of the Russian Federal Security Service Alexander Litvinenko died, on November 23, his mysterious poisoning remains one of the main topics in western and Russian mass media. During the last week of Litvinenko’s life, and even more so after his death, this topic became wrapped in a variety of contradictory theories and hypotheses that look more like classic plots for spy novels of the Cold War period. Information from sources, close to the investigation, as well as comments made by Litvinenko’s friends, link more and more new names of witnesses and suspects to this story. Among them there are former and active officers of the Russian secret services, KGB servicemen who fled to the West in the Soviet era, secret agents of the different intelligence services, and the oppositionist Russian oligarchs living abroad.
Convenient suspect
Since November 20, one of the most intriguing personages in the abovementioned list is Andrei Lugovoy. He is interesting as such, because he had once served in one of the most privileged and classified bodies of the Russian special services, being in the secrets of several key figures of the first post-Soviet decade in the history of his country. He had been in a close contact with then high-ranking representatives of the foreign security bodies. But all the abovesaid is not the main point. Important stage in his career was linked to two oligarchs, who had enormous influence within the entourage of the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and who found themselves in disgrace and fled abroad when Vladimir Putin came to power. It is noteworthy that while working with the oligarchs, Lugovoy did not break up ties with his former colleagues, who were still in service. Then, after the change of power, he stayed in Russia, unlike Litvinenko, and became a businessman, whose range of activity included security sphere. At this stage Lugovoy continued keeping in touch with the fugitive oligarchs, making no secret of this fact. He claims that such contacts did not provoke any interest of the Russian secret services.
Many find it suspicious that it was this person, who communicated with Alexander Litvinenko the day he was poisoned, on November 1. On December 4, a group of representatives of the British Police Antiterrorist Department SO15 arrived in Moscow. Its main goal is to question Lugovoy. In spite of the fact that he is not hiding, willingly talks to journalists, and shows readiness to cooperate with the investigators, a lot of newspapers, and some of Litvinenko’s friends, see him as the main suspect.
Presence of such a suspect brilliantly fits in both scenarios of the much publicized London murder. Those who accuse Russian secret services of carrying it out, make an accent on the fact that Lugovoy had never broken up ties with his former colleagues, and during the last years he has been carrying on business in Moscow without any obstacle, regardless of his ties with Putin’s main opponents. Those who hold to the opposite version, use almost the same argument. They note that not long ago Lugovoy was thought to be a close confidant of the fugitive oligarchs, and continued keeping in touch with them till the present days. On the other hand, given his past in service, he was allegedly very suitable to carry out Litvinenko’s poisoning, aiming at discrediting the Russian secret services and the FSB former director, the President Vladimir Putin.
The only thing that can be ascertained unequivocally is the fact that this whole discussion has given Lugovoy a world-wide fame. However, regardless of this boom around him and of the fact that he had already been in the center of a much publicized story five years ago, there is still very poor information concerning the past and the present of this person. Almost all available data about him comes out of two sources: the November 22 publication in the Moscow Kommersant edition, and the interview with Lugovoy on Ekho Moskvy radio two days later. The rest is the short interviews with him concerning Litvinenko’s poisoning, and rather shallow references to him in connection to the same story or to the former Aeroflot directorship’s financial fraud.
Information concerning Lugovoy himself in two abovementioned sources can be combined into a few lines of printed text. Moreover, almost all of it is about the years 1987-1997. It is unsaid when and where he was born, and what he was doing prior to 1987. The period after 1997 is described very poorly, and nothing new is added to what was previously published. For this reason, the evidence voiced by one of Lugovoy’s former subordinates is of a particular interest. The AIA managed to contact him last week, and he told us some previously unknown details about his former boss’ past. Most interesting details concern the 1990s. Completing this information by those facts that were drawn from the open sources, we have managed to make a more or less consistent picture about the past of one of the main and the most mysterious personages in Litvinenko’s case.
Head-of-the-Government’s guard
According to the AIA source, life of majority of men in Logovoy’s family was closely connected to military service. Lugovoy used to tell that his grandfather made his mark in the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-05, and was awarded twice with a special award of the Russian Emperor’s Army, the George’s Cross. Lugovoy’s father, Constantine, also made an army career, becoming the officer in charge of political education within the missile corps of the Soviet Army. Andrei’s elder brother was serving in a special divers’ force.
Andrei Lugovoy was born in Azerbaijan in 1966. Because of his father’s service, the family was often traveling from one military base to another, not only in the Soviet Union, but also in the countries of Warsaw Pact, where the Soviet troops were deployed. Lugovoy spent about 12 years of his life in the Caucasus, including Georgia, and lived in Czechoslovakia for several years as well.
In 1983 he was admitted into Moscow High School of the General Military Command named after the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. This was one of the Soviet army’s oldest educational institutions. In 1986 Lugovoy was contacted by the KGB. After his graduation, in 1987, he started his service in the KGB 9th department, in charge of the personal security of high-ranking state officials. Until 1991 he was filling various command posts in the Kremlin Regiment (currently – the Presidential Regiment), which was one of the 9th department’s units.
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FSO emblem |
In Autumn 1991, the former guard of the Soviet leaders was renamed into General Guard Department (GUO) of the Russian Federation. Against the background of a general degradation of the Russian special services after the USSR collapse, the GUO was distinguished by a high professional and technical level, having almost unlimited authority (including the right to carry out electronic and human intelligence in Russia and abroad, outdoor surveillance, and searches).
Lugovoy was GUO’s staff serviceman almost from the very moment of its creation. In 1992-93, he was deputy chief of the group in charge of personal safety of Yegor Gaidar, who was then occupying such posts as the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Economy, and the acting Prime Minister. Lugovoy escorted Gaidar in his numerous trips abroad, and that gave him a possibility to get acquainted with his foreign counterparts’ experience of work.
Besides that, Lugovoy was also in charge of personal safety of the President’s Administration Head Sergey Filatov, and of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Kozirev. According to available data, shortly before leaving the service Lugovoy participated in safeguarding Boris Berezovsky, who, in October 1996, was appointed Deputy Secretary of Russia’s Security Council. At the end of the same year Lugovoy resigned from the Federal Protection Service (FSO), into which the GUO was renamed shortly before his resignation.
Continuation of the article:
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