Nearly 15 years after the high-profile assassination of Kremlin critic and former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, the European Court of Human Rights has placed the blame for the murder squarely on Russia. In a ruling Tuesday, the court concluded that Litvinenko’s polonium poisoning in 2006 was “imputable to Russia” and ordered the Russian government to pay 100,000 euros ($117,300) to his widow, Marina. Litvinenko, who famously identified Vladimir Putin as his killer as he lay on his deathbed, died at age 43 after drinking tea in London that had been laced with radioactive poison by former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun. Moscow has long believed to be responsible for the murder, and a British inquiry implicated Putin in the plot back in 2016. The latest ruling comes after Marina Litvinenko filed a claim with the court in 2020 demanding that Russia pay 3.5 million euros for the killing. The court also took Russian authorities to task for apparently making no attempt to investigate the matter, finding that they “have not made any serious attempt either to elucidate the facts” or “engage with any fact-finding efforts.”
