THE MATTER OF STATE SECURITY: Russia’s War on Democracy, its Motivations, and a Call to Self-Defence

“There is no such thing as a former KGB agent.”

- Badri Patarkatsishvili, former employer of Andrey Lugovy, KGB/FSB agent, turned Deputy to the State Duma and the Metropolitan Police’s prime suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko

Foreword: This piece is heavily indebted to the brilliant work of Catherine Belton, whose account of Putin’s rise and power, Putin’s People, stands as the best and most comprehensive account of modern Russian history in print today, achieving the triple feat of combining riveting, brilliant prose with compelling reportage and distinct, heartfelt care for the matter at hand. The legal attacks levied against her by Kremlin loyalists abusing London courts are shameful and must be loudly condemned for what they are: pathetic, ghoulish, fraudulent, bad-faith legal action. The kind of fearless, meticulous, and important journalism Belton’s work represents must be protected and defended at all costs.

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T he Biltmore Hotel manages a unique sort of understated grandiosity. The hotel’s location on Grosvenor Square, its quintessentially English red-brick facade and neo-Classical columns announce the promise of the luxury, class, and importance for which London’s Mayfair district has a global reputation. The Biltmore shares the quality with most interesting buildings in the city of enjoying a long history of rebranding and name-change; this palace at the epicentre of global finance, politics, and espionage used to be called The Millennium, and it was here in November of 2006

that Alexander Litvinenko began to die.

On November 17th 2006, Gower Street’s University College Hospital took on a new and difficult patient. The man, with striking blue eyes and a defined Slavic face and frame, had by this point been reduced to a waif, clinging to life as London’s finest doctors attempted to discover what exactly had happened to Mr Litvinenko, a British citizen and Russian émigré who appeared to have been poisoned. The FSB spy turned dissident investigator that lay dying at University College Hospital offered the world a glimpse into the dark corridors of an emboldened Kremlin; a complex, intelligent structure of politics splashed red with blood and glittering with corruption, sustained by backroom deals and shadowy intermediaries between organised criminal enterprise and the halls of power. Alexander Litvinenko is our gateway into the story of Russia’s anti-democratic efforts, of its spies and diplomats, leaders and killers, the power- brokers and the broken powerful, all of them bones paving the road that leads to Vladimir Putin and his grand strategy.

Why, then, did Litvinenko need to die? To answer this, we return to the Palm Bar of the Millennium Hotel, where our moribund spy met with two former associates from Russian intelligence, two former KGB men, Russian politician Andrey Lugovoy and Dimitry Kovtun, who slipped intensely radioactive Plutonium into their associate’s tea. It took almost a month for Litvinenko to die, and when he did it was after unimaginable, brutal suffering, exactly what Vladimir Putin must have had in mind for a loyalist turned threat to the Kremlin. Litvinenko had published a series of tracts accu-

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sing Putin of orchestrating the Moscow Apartment Bombings, the Moscow Theatre Hostage Crisis, among a whole slew of Eastern European murders, tragedies, and terrorist attacks all linked to international organised crime networks. The man knew too much and had said too much and so he had to die.

This kind of authoritarian manoeuvring, be it murder or acts of terrorism, is a trend for the Kremlin, with dissidents and officials who have outlived their usefulness often taking an unfortunate fall out of their high-rise windows. But where does this impulse originate; how and why has it spread beyond Russia and projected itself as a grand anti- democratic strategy against the West?

segamI ytteG/naidrauG ehT ,6002 ,debhtaed sih no oknevtyL

Contrary to popular Western opinion, democracy and the ideals that compose it do not threaten Vladimir Putin. He sees democracy, freedom, and international institutions through the lens of any good KGB man: dynamics of usefulness, leverage, and power. It is bold to murder a British citizen with Plutonium in the heart of London, indeed it is a rare kind of insult for any Western country to suffer, but where are Andrey Lugovoy and Dimitry Kovtun now? Rotting in an English cell, rightly convicted in a London court for murder? Hardly. Lugovoy has even begun a career in politics, serving as a member of the State Duma. Is it any wonder then, that Putin sees the democratic West as an easy target? When after years of investigations, red tape, and media attention, our institutions, which Western democrats argue with sometimes ear-splitting passion uphold the very foundation of modern international governance, couldn’t do a thing to bring these two rather inept and obvious contract killers to justice?

Putting aside Litivinenko’s accusations concerning Putin’s bloody route to the Kremlin (the topic for another and perhaps complimentary essay), and concerning ourselves only with the international elements of Putin’s strategy, we find the recent cyberattacks against US government agencies and businesses to be a perfect example of Putin’s preferred method for disrupting democracy. Under cover of Russian hacking gangs with names like “REvil” and “Cozy Bear,” the Kremlin has attacked American industries large and small, locking away information and technology vital to their functioning until sizable payment is administered, breaking into the confidential servers of both sides of America’s political party apparatus, and infiltrating government agencies, all with little to no sizable, public retribution. Putin understands that democracies move slowly, are fond of subtlety and diplomatic conversation, and are not often willing to enter into conflict. Putin, therefore, keeps us talking while undermining our credibility and legitimacy.

Take the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline proposal linking Russia and Germany, the pet project of the Russian-state linked gas giant Gazprom. The United States has threatened to doom the project (coming to an ‘understanding’ with Germany on the matter) shoould

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Russia invade Ukraine in the coming weeks. This threat, which certainly involves some risk on the Kremlin’s part, plays right into Putin’s game. Should Putin invade Ukraine, the United States and its allies would not jump to defend it. It does not make strategic sense for Washington to enter into any direct military conflict with Russia. Biden will respond as threatened and move to introduce harsh economic sanctions, cut off Russian leaders from the world banking infrastructure, and attempt to stifle the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. Putin, however, gets more than he gives up. Putin understands that the democratic urge to put faith in international institutions will result in this drastically unimaginative retribution and he will benefit in three principal ways: he will demonstrate once again his ability to invade and occupy territory he considers rightfully Russian, thereby intimidating the rest of Eastern Europe and driving them to Moscow and away from flirtations with NATO and the EU by fear; he creates tension between Europe and the US as American sanctions place pressure on Germany and its energy sector as well as fracturing relationships with major investors in London and Paris with business in Russian companies hurt by new limitations in the international market, all impact of which is cushioned for Putin as a good portion of his state enterprise relies, as Belton points out, on black cash anyway; and Putin can feed the damage done to the average Russian citizen by this new menu of sanctions through his complex propaganda network and distribute it into the homes of every Russian as another scene in a grand narrative of Western aggression against the proud Russian state thereby boosting Putin’s image as a leader that irks the West by fighting for Russian honour and integrity and with it his approval rating and position in Duma and Kremlin.

Here is the fundamental problem of Russia’s war on democracy, its first principle but also its greatest flaw: it presupposes that the West cannot or will not fight back. Vladimir Putin only appears as a grand chess player because he doesn’t have an opponent playing the same game against him. Democracy is a slow-moving force, and it does not respond well to quick-witted, conniving dictators working in neighbourhoods where democracy has little purchase, but it ought to learn, and quickly.

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RAXAM/NNC ,1202 ,aynleY ni pudliub yratiliM

Biden’s sanctions, should an invasion of Ukraine take place, must be brutal and strategic. Governments in London and Berlin must come to understand that the Faustian bargain Russian industry represents is not worth taking, that their pipelines and their LLCs are nothing more than Kremlin bargaining chips and easily-bought leverage. The forces of democracy must be united against an opponent like Putin and must be willing to sacrifice if we are to check his growing influence. Putin’s primary threat to democracy is not his hackers or his troops, his threat and his aim lies in calling the bluff of democrats everywhere; betting that when enough money is on the table, when it comes down to democratic nations accepting risk, that we will instead opt to condone his norms-destroying, violent, brutish, corrupt, and anti-democratic behaviour in Russia and in its ‘near-abroad.’ If Putin gets his way, he will have undermined democracy by proving it goes no further than the dollar or pound, that our principles are not backed up by force and are as easily turned away with a bribe as any Soviet bureaucrat. We cannot allow that to be true.

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The West forgets that, behind every expended Russian bullet, every empty poison capsule, every scorched server-room, bombed-out apartment building, corpse-littered parliament, mangled dissident made unfortunate ‘victim of a fall,’ or gas-smothered theatre, there is merely one man and his plans. These plans can be disrupted, even foiled. With stakes as high as these, it is not too great a feat of logical gymnastics to argue it is the West’s political and moral duty to disrupt them. All it takes is the will to play to win, something Vladimir Putin has placed quite a lot on the line betting we will refuse to do.

Alexander Litvinenko died cursing Putin. I do not believe there are better words with which to close than these, written two days before his death just steps from our Portico:

‘...as I lie here I can distinctly hear the beating of the wings of the angel of death.

I may be able to give him the slip but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like.

I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition.

You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.

You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty, or any civilised value.

You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women.

You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.’

FIN.