The former KGB agent that turned into a powerful critic of Vladimir Putin died of radiation poisoning, the British announced today. A high level of an unusual radioactive substance in Alexander Litvinenko's urine establishes that the people who poisoned him have access to highly secret nuclear substances -- which puts the blame squarely on the Russians:

A former KGB agent turned Kremlin critic who blamed a "barbaric and ruthless" Russian President Vladimir Putin for his fatal poisoning had a toxic radioactive substance in his body, the British government said Friday.

In the statement dictated from his deathbed, Alexander Litvinenko accused the Russian leader of having "no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value." In his first public remarks on the allegations, Putin said he deplored the former spy's death but called the statement a political provocation.

The Health Protection Agency said the radioactive element polonium-210 had been found in Litvinenko's urine.

The agency's chief executive, Pat Troop, said that the high level indicated Litvinenko "would either have to have eaten it, inhaled it or taken it in through a wound."

The Admiral Emeritus and I discussed the case earlier in the week, and he thought it sounded like a case of severe radiation poisoning. When Litvinenko's hair fell out and his bone marrow died, the AE noted that it paralleled similar cases from early American experiments in atomic development. Both of us recognized the implications of using a radioactive poison; once introduced in great enough quantities, no one could stop the damage to Litvinenko. His death was assured, even though it took a while to complete.

For those who recall the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, this may sound somewhat familiar. Viktor Yushchenko got a severe case of dioxin poisoning, narrowly avoiding death but suffering facial disfigurement. Yushchenko had promoted a pro-Western polity for Ukraine, wanting to de-emphasize Russian ties and separate the former Soviet republic from Moscow and Putin. He survived, but clearly he was not meant to do so. In Litvinenko's case, his assassins made sure they did the job right.

The use of polonium strongly indicts the Russian government in this murder. One does not find polonium just laying around somewhere; it's rather rare, and difficult to produce in any quantity. However, small quantities are all that are needed for poisoning someone, as the maximum safe ingested dose is 0.03 microcurie. It's 25 billion times more poisonous than hydrocyanic acid. Anyone who attempted to deploy this as an assassin's weapon has to have a lot of expertise in handling polonium -- which again strongly indicates a government assassin at work. It practically convicts Putin by its use.

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