Thinking Sideways: Death of Alexander Litvinenko

wouldn't you say more than kind of? Yeah, it's definitely an international mystery for us. I guess I mean either are people in this world that No, that's not it's still it's still crosses country lines no matter which way you slice it. Hey, it's international, yeah they do. Yuh, all right, this is it's got lots of murder intrigue. You guys are gonna love it. And we're gonna talk about the death of Alexander Litvinenko. First off, I want to give a shout out to Rosie who suggested this mystery.

Thanks Rosie. Um. And so let's talk about Alexander Lipmandienko. He was a journalist at the time of his death living in the UK. But before being a journalist, he was an FSB officer. That's a good question. The FSB stands for Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. That doesn't sound ominous. Yeah, they're the successor to the the KGB. And what did the KGB stand for? Oh, Christ, I

don't remember, you don't remember. It's been a while, But reportedly the FSB is is not quite as brutal as a KGB. Not quite, but they're not quite boy scouts. Yeah, Litvinenko was still with the FSB, and he and several other FSB officers publicly accused some of their higher ups in the organization of ordering the assassination of Rospirezovsky, who was a Russian tycoon. You've heard of those those famous oligarchs, you know, the one the ones who wound up owning

everything in the nineties and they're super rich and stuff. Yeah, he was unlike most of the other oligarchs, he didn't have any allies with the Russian government. He was actually kind of opposed to Yeltson and Boris Yeltson, who was in charge in the late nineties. Still, this is pretty

Vladimir putin. That's interesting. Yeah, it's just yeah, that's always interesting to me when somebody who like is in power for a reason is like, but you know, screw those guys that are the reason I'm in power, to make it easier for me. Well, yeah, but he benefited from the situation. They weren't directly the reason he was in power as much as some other Yeah. Yeah. Oh but anyway, that back to Bezovsky. Uh, the assassination wasn't carried out, at least not at the time, though he did die

in thirteen. He decided to move to Britain for health reasons, meaning he didn't want to get murdered. A lot of people were getting murdered in Russian around this time. A lot of people left the Untry at this time too, for that very same reason. Yeah. But in thirteen he was living, he was living in the UK. He was found dead in his home and there's somewhat suspicious circumstances,

and he was he hanged himself in his bathroom. It kind of looked like a suicide anyway, and but he might actually have killed himself because his life had really taken a turn for the worst. He had been through a series of lawsuits, lost a huge amount of wealth, and so he'd gone from being mega rich to broke. He had also it was known that he was having depression issues. Yeah, he had much you know, a great

amount of time prior to that. Yeah. Yeah, so he had depression issues anyway, and now he really had something to be depressed about. Yeah, he was selling his possessions, I understand, just to pay his legal bills. The corner at the time still refused to rule the death of suicide because, you know, because of who his enemies were.

So even though physically the physical evidence kind of looked like suicide and he'd had a motive, but still, and so it's still an open case because they ruled it unknown. Is that right? Yeah? They did. I don't. So this is one of those things that I just don't get because you know, it's just going to fuel the fires. Is I wish they would come up with a different term, which is death by this but with questions? Does that make sense? Yeah? I mean, you know, they could just

say probably suicide, but I wouldn't guarantee. Yeah, there's no opinion put in there. I guess there's a problem. It's a box that gets ticked as to the cause of death. Yeah, I think that the official terminology is open verdict, right, Yeah, I know, I guess that makes sense. Yeah, but you

don't really want your corner's edit poral izing. No. But but the problem is is that it then what was the term that you just used again, Joe, Yes, open verdict means that people always construe that as unknown and all these things always get pushed into these cases. I mean, we're not talking about Berezovsky at all here in the grander scheme of the story. It's just one of those things that I notice about this, this corner, this process,

the British corner always bothers me. Yeah, but Berezovsky is a bit of a footnote though. Yeah. But yeah, well okay, if you're a British coroner and you're listening, I mean, clean up your act all right or right? Associating email. Yeah, back to Alexander Litvinenko, Well, they were doing the episode about Yeah, that guy a little sidetrack there, So obviously he didn't stay with the FSB. I mean, after you accuse your employer government that kind of stuff here, Yeah,

are numbered. Yeah, he he became a journalist instead and was critical of the government. He left Russia in the year two thousand with his family and was living in exile in the UK, working as a journalist. He wrote a couple of books. The one called Blowing Up Russia and the other one was Lubyanka Criminal Group, and they were critical. You know a lot of a lot of people have said that the Russian government eventually devolved into

into a gangster government. That's kind of a well known thing, yea, through the decades. Yeah, yeah, before the fall of the Soviet and they were a gangster government really, and uh, you know those ours they were kind of a gangster government and today they are so I don't know. I was just keeping my mouth shut because I like being alive, Mr Putin. That's a good point. Yeah, I like you, Ladimir. You're very sexy. Yeah, when you ride shirtless on that bear,

just what I was thinking of. Yeah, we're we're hunting salmon. Yeah, back to Alexander. In November two thousand six, Litvinenko became suddenly ill in London and he was taken to a hospital where it was discovered that he had polonium to ten in his bloodstream. It sounds like a made up word, Yeah, but apparently it's a real deal. But it's a very rare radioactive isotope, which you're not gonna like, you know,

finding your average drug store. Lit Vinenko was hospitalized for three weeks a little more or less, and then died of radiation poisoning. Not a pleasant way to go, No, I can't imagine you. So, so here are theories, and there's basically three possible ones unless you guys have other ones. But yeah, it was an accident, um, Litvinenko was playing around with a little polonium and maybe he accidentally inhaled some or got him on You got the polonium slinky?

Is that what you're saying, Yeah, something like that. So there's the accident. You guys have any thoughts on that? And it seems a bit unlikely. Yeah, it could have been suicide. He got his hands on some polonium and ingested it on purpose because Miss Mother Russia is so bad polonium candy. Yeah, I don't know where he got a drug story. I guess there's another possibility, which is

murder boys deliberate poisoning by by the third party. Um. And there's a little bit of support for the theory because several of Litvineko's associates had been murdered quite a few, yeah, quite a few. Uh. And police interviews in the hospital, Livineko said that he had met with two former KGB agents on the morning of November one, two thousand and six,

which is the same day that he became ill. Quite a coincidence there, And it turns out investigations prove it showed that one of the agents, whose name was Dmitry Coughton, had used a house in the car in Hamburg, Germany, which was where he was before he went over to London to meet with Litvinenko, and traces of polonium were found in both that house and the car. So that's

kind of incriminating. And of course late Vineko had been accusing Vladimir Putin and various heinous crimes, which we'll talk about it a little bit. And so there was not one of might saying, of course, Laddie had nothing to do with this. Nothing. Yeah, nothing, again, I'm just going to say mom on this, okay. So okay, So the murder theory looks like to be the strongest, right according to the British government. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, and obviously it's caused a little bit of a cooling of

relations between Britain and Russia. They were kind of you know anyway. Yeah, but but this, this story is actually part of a bigger story which you guys may have heard of. And I'm going to talk about the Russian apartment bombings. Yeah, okay, yeah, in the early nineties when the Soviet Union fell eventually, of course, as you all know, Borisieltson became President of the Russian Federation after Gorby Yeah yeah, and then uh and he was re elected in nineteen

but by nine he was pretty unpopular. And we'll go on to the reasons for that a little later. But but it was Boris in charge in nine and then in August nineteen nine, Yeltson fired his prime minister and his entire cabinet, by the way, and and then he appointed a fairly unknown guy named Vladimir Putin to replace his to replace his prime minister. And again Putin was pretty unknown at the time. He was a former KGB officer.

Of course, we all know that, uh. Jelson also let up be known that he preferred Vladimir to be his successor as president. Of course, you know, I'm not sure, how many how likely it was to happen at that moment because Yeltson wasn't polling all that well at that I'm right at that moment. So before we get too far into because I know that people who are familiar with some of the history will will know this. Gorbachoff

was the one who came up with para striker correct glastmost. Yeah, that that whole economic theory and stuff like that was just like open, like more open than he opened the market, right, which didn't do good things for them at all. Well, yeah, it was mostly out of yelts In his his economic reforms, he talked about quote economic shock therapy and all that stuff. Yeah, he he was going to fix what Gorby had messed up. Well, I mean that the whole, the whole situation had been

messed up for years. I mean, planned economies never do well, you know, I mean it was it was the problems is that the state was propping up failing businesses because no business could fail in the perfect state. But I was I was trying to remember who did what. So that's so that's the order that it went from. I think that I think Garbage pretty much continued the planning, uh, the planned economy, and and it was Elson who wanted

to privatize everything. Well, no, not exactly. So it was because we were talking about Pere strike as that was where Gorbachev was trying to allow the free market economy to happen. A little bit simple, simplified version is that the state still controlled everything, but you could now sell to the market at a different price than what you sold to the state. The state got the right price, the good cheap price, but you could sell it at

whatever you wanted. But of course then people started getting greedy and it started causing inflation, and everything got out of hand. And then that's when Gorbachev obviously was super up popular when inflation was through the roof and the it's the ruble. Yeah, the ruble was, you know, worth nothing, so then not quite, but that's that's a different country. I think that was Germany in the twenties something like that. But no, and then after that, that's when Yelson Um

came in and he changed some of it. He still allowed some of the privatization, but they were still controlling the markets, but you had to go through the actual government first to get those contracts. To go through and that's how a lot of the bribery and these all of our situations came about. Yeah, essentially, and Yelson wanted to privatize it essentially, you know, in the end, but

he still kept control within the governm. Yeah. But and his plan to do so was to sell off the state, all the state owned enterprises, which was a vast, vast amount of wealth. And and so he he just had every Russian citizen was given a voucher and I can't remember how much it was so that they could buy stock and these now privatized companies. But because of it, because of inflation, and because of just the end of the Soviet Union, a lot of people lost their pensions

and we're flat broke. Almost everybody that was an ordinary system sold their vouchers for pennies on the dollar, and that's how and so they wound up all in the hands of these quote unquote oligarchs but owning everything. And this is why Yelson was so unpopular by the end of nine nine, Yeah, because the economy is just in the toilet, well it is, and all these people who have basically grabbed all the wealth need time to the economies and the toilet. The GDP dropped, and yeah, nobody

had any money. Everybody was flat broken, unemployed, and and yeah, Yelson was not popular. Uh so that's that's the situation. And so that's when he then brings putin in. Yeah, so it pointed it was i think his third prime minister in a pretty brief amount of time. And then just right after that September. A month later, September, September four, a very very large bomb went up in an apartment building in the city of I'm probably pronouncing this wrong.

It's like boy boyen asks and this is the former sub yet Unix. So the bill. You've seen those pictures of those enormous concrete block apartments literally a block, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, So that whole thing that blowed up, and a lot of people were killed and was surprisingly nobody took credit for the explosion, and certainly did seem to be an accident.

It looked like a deliberate bombing. And then four days later, in September nine, another apartment block was blown up, this time in Moscow, and then another one blew up in September. On September sixteenth, department building the city of Volgadonsk was bombed and you know, all two d ninety three people were killed and more than thousand were wounded and or maimed in these four separate bombings. Yeah, yeah, and everybody,

everybody in Russia was scared. It was like, you know, terror on a mass scale, and nobody, no didn't knew who it was that was doing it. And then on September fourteenth, another bomb was found and diffused in Moscow. Apparently a couple more were found around this time, but I'm uncertain as to the exact dates. And then on September twenty two, another large bomb was found in the basement of an apartment block in the city of Ryazon.

It was defused before he could go off. And in this case, there were witnesses who actually saw the guys who likely were likely planted the bomb, And I'm not sure if they saw them actually you know, bringing it in or running away, or if they were to the justice the guys that came by and rented the basement space or maybe all three, because it's most of these guys, most of these spaces they did cut people came in and rented space and then trucked in all the all

the materials for the bombs and put them all together and then and then left. But in this case they had some faces, they had descriptions, and very so, very shortly every vertical surface in the cnity of Rhizon was

covered with wanted posters with drawings of these guys. Uh. But still the motive for the bombings was unclear until the FSB and the Russian government said that there was what is quote unquote a Chechen trail unquote uh, and the bombings were almost certainly the work of Chechen terrorists

or Daggers standi terrorists. I mean, it's a very complicated situation over there, um, you know, and chach Chestily has kind of like at least about half the step of churches is almost an anarchy, and there's all sorts of guerrilla group running around, and there's and there's people from Dagistan are operating in Chechnia. People from Chechen are operating in Dagistan. And so for a quick bit of geographic reference for people who may not know where Chechenia is,

because I didn't. I mean, I've known the name of the country, but it never really logged in my brain where the heck it was. It's about a thousand miles directly north of Iran. It's in that neck of the woods. So just to kind of give you an idea, I mean, when it's a country that the Russian Federation is going to war with, I expected to be in the far north reach just for some reason. So that's why it's

on the southern flag. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is um and there's there There's been more than one Chechen war between them, and so this is the second one. Yeah, it is. This is right about. This is what kind of set off the Second Chechen War. And remember Vladimir Putin, he now the prime minister. He gave a really tough sounding speech at a press conference and any order of the air, bad thing of grossny Chechena and that was

the beginning of the Second Chechen War. And of course that was actually ordered by Yeltsen, but but Putin was the one who actually gave the order. Did he look like the hero? Yeah, he's defending the Russian people from terrorists. Yeah, it's much like a certain man in this country a decade or so ago did. Yeah, it's like you know, Putin is still doing to this day. Yeah. Suddenly, Vladimir

Putin was a star it's popular, they want hugely. And I didn't mention this before, but there was a presidential election schedule for the very next year, two thousand. Then when Boris Elton saw that Putin was writing so high the polls, and Putin, the course was his buddy, he decided he was at the time polling about two percent approval ratings, which is basically none. Yeah, so he was. He decided to abdicate in favor of Putin, So he

resigned at the end of December. December thirty one, Putin took over as president and I guess what, he's still there. He did swap. He did swap with the prime minister for one short term before he came back in his president again. And I assume that arrangement's going to go on indefinitely. This is a dumb question. Is he's not elected? Yeah? Do people run against him? Uh? Well, on paper, yeah they do. I mean no, they do have sort of real elections, you know. I guess there's there's all kinds

of accusations of tampering. I mean it was I think it was in the Ish range where he had an election where he was trailing massively in the polls and then one by some huge margin. I mean, so there's all kinds of accusations of funny business. But the thing is is that this this second Chechen War has begun just before the election, and because he's now the star, he just totally takes it massively. Yeah, which which works out well for us see how him, But more on

that later. Um, well it works out pretty good for Putin too. Yeah. So there you have at the mysterious Russian apartment bombings of and there's several theories out there as to who did it why. First theory the CIA. This theory does not have a lot of support. There's only one guy who's put it out there, and he was actually sort of accused of being one of the many organized the transportation of explosives to Moscow for those bombings.

His name was Adam Dukeshev. He actually doesn't cite any evidence. So this theory that doesn't really have legs. You know, what, do you guys think it's pretty convenient something? Yeah, I don't know. We haven't blamed them in a while, Yeah why not? Yeah? Okay, Um, so we'll put that theor to bed. The next one is, and this is a favorite with the Russian government, which is Chechen warlords or rather actually say Degas Danny warlords who are based in Chechenia.

Just about a month before the bombings, the Chechen based group called the Islamic International Brigade invaded the Soviet Republican Dagistan in support of Dagistan separatists. A quick note here for everybody is Chechnia is an Islamic nation. Yeah, and not everybody knows that, but that's their their religion is. That's where this is going. That's what a lot of Wahabi Islam they're actually which is the brand, the brand

that's promoted by Saudi Arabia. So it's a pretty it's a pretty what's the word I'm thinking of large, Well, it's it's a widespread religion, widespread. But it's also a very a very strict sort of interpretation of Islam. You know, it's not like, you know, it's not like the kind of the interpretation of Islam that you see and say Indonesia, you know, where people are a lot we're more relaxed about things, and it's like it's a kind of harsh

interpretation of it. It's also just societal Yeah, yeah, okay, but that too Dagistan and Chechnia. The Russian army of course put this incursion down hard and they up going into tech you also doing a little bombing, and of

course people were killed, lots of things were broken. Uh And reportedly one of the late one of the leaders of the i B that's the International the Islamic International Brigade, whose name was Iban al Khattab, vowed vengeance against Russia, saying, quote, the Mujahadeen if Dagistan are going to carry out the presals in various places in Russia unquote. But then two weeks later he walked that back. I'll have to have

denied that his people carried out the bombings. He said that he was fighting the Russian army and not women and children, and so you know, he's made conflicting statements here, but he denies, he denies that they had involvement with it. And and I'm kind of generally speaking, when terrorists carry out an operation like this, they're they're very happy to take credit for it. Yeah, even sometimes when they didn't actually do it benefits them, they'll say, oh, no, we

did it, we did it. I Mean, I feel like we hear that a lot on the radio or in these days where you know, they'll say there was this bombing, and you know, these five have said that we did it, and they you know, are vaguely maybe connected in one way or another, but you know, it's kind of like everyone's claiming it and it's like okay, you know, it's one thing to say, um, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna get back at you Russia with everything we have, and

then to like see this horror that isn't you know that was kind of an attack on civilians and you know, women and children, and you know, to say like, no, we know, we didn't. That's not us though, like yeah, we want to get back at you, Russia, but we want to get back at you within like the rules of the Geneva Code or rules of warfare or whatever, within reason. I just don't think. I can't. I can't imagine that they would have done this and then not

taking credit for it. Well they had. It was interesting the this this kind of has some relevance to our our next theory, which is that they did it with kind of gear that they didn't necessarily have access to, uh, certain explosives well, like like hd X and a certain time or that standard Soviet arm Russian army issue. Yeah, you know the thing I mean, I I have a lot of qualms with the activities that go on in in Czechnia under the UH the rule of the Russian Federation.

I mean, because the Islamic religion gets blamed for a lot of stuff and is always deemed as the terror group, when in fact it's religion, and all religions are full of good people and bad people. And so I really I I this this whole it's going to be the chech of warlords. Things bothers me because I feel bad for what is probably a primarily a group of normal, nice people just getting this huge labels slapped on him by Putin, who's dancing the victory dance, going look at me.

I found the bad people that you didn't know we're here, and I'm taking them out. Yeah, And certainly there's a lot of there's a lot of people who aren't terrorists who just happened to be living in a village that is going to get bombed out of it. It's kind of sad for them, not unlike you know a lot of other places in the Mid East, for instance. Yeah, yeah,

I mean it's a fearmongering. I mean, this, this whole we're going to go to war against these people because they're terrible, is fearmongering that we see in a lot of political organizations in this day and age, unfortunately, and Islam is always the finger, the one that the finger is. Yeah, but it changes every year, Yeah, I mean it really does. And it's but you mentioned that, um that the there was some kind of equipment that was like a debt

issue Russian army. Okay, so that's that's the bomb that they diffused in Rhison. So maybe what's the next the Russian government? Maybe Jeff fuel doesn't melt steel beams, of course it does. What are you saying? Yeah, the an American journalist. I saw this guy online giving a talk. I don't know if you guys have seen that. David Satder Yes, s A T. T. E. R. Yeah, he spent a lot of time living in Russia, speaks Russian

and has been covering Russia for a long time. He traveled to Reason years after the incident and spoke to a lot of residents and also to the police, and believe it or not, nobody there that he talked to believes that Chechen terrorists or Dagistani terrorists or anybody planted

the bombs. Well, but there's also I mean, there's the stuff about the guy who was ideed and on the posters and it was yeah, and so the building superintendent who rented him the space, yeah he uh, he described him and they did a police get to the guy and everything, and the guy had presented I d s if I recall correctly, and then he was hauled in by the FSB and they and they basically said, no, you saw this guy and and so yeah, it was all. That was all. And that guy was he was a karachi, yeah,

something like that. He wasn't one of those very there's so many there's a huge patchwork of ethnicities in that part the world. So essentially, yeah, so there is that. Uh. And of course I talked to you about about Yelson and his distinct lack of popularity, and since elections were coming up, Boris and his entourage were legitimately scared of what was going to happen to them if he gave up power. Uh So, a lot of people were expecting that Yeltson would find some excuse to declare martial law.

And postponed the elections or canceled the elections. And it seems like that that was his only option unless he can install somebody in the presidency who was an ally who would protect him. So that was it. Otherwise warts Yeltson would they probably have been murdered or imprisoned or god knows what. That's how unpopular it was. I mean in America and in the West, Yeltson's actually got high approval ratings. But really the guy was so corrupt that

he was just immensely unpopular. And I was going to ask you to explain what it is because you've you've said several times he was corrupt and that you were gonna explain it's tell me what is it that he did that makes you say that he was that corrupt. Well, I think corrupt is kind of endemic there. But I think one of the most one of the things is that is all our buddies who managed to come into possession of just about all the wealth in Russia where

his pals, you know. I think that's that's one thing that people really were a little upset back. Okay, So it was it was known direct associates of his were suddenly very rich people. Yeah, and you know Yelton wasn't the only corrupt guy in Russia. No, that's that's just systemic to that entire governance. Yeah, and I'm understanding there's

no corruption here in America. We are perfect America, America. Well, back to the city of Rhizon, Remember that's where the bomb was found that didn't go off, that was diffused. That where the main the main ingredient in the bomb was like rd X and there was a Russian Army issue detonator on it. As there were pictures out there that have been seen by people, and I also said that there are sketches of the bombing suspects all over

town and say have been sealed up by police. In the days after the apartment bomb had been discovered, a telephone operator overheard a conversation between somebody in the city and a phone number in Moscow, and the manner the reason end of the line of saying, quote, the city is sealed and were trapped. What should we do unquote?

And then the voice at the other had said, split up and leave the city one by one, do what you can unquote, And the polling operator went to the police and reported this and gave them the phone number in Moscow, and when Riason police called that number, it turns out it was FSB headquarters. The guys who have made the phone call didn't succeed in escaping. They were arrested by the police and they turned out to all have FSB identifications on them, So that doesn't look so good.

A little confusion there, and and how how are clarify for me again? How were they tied back to the bombings? Well, they were because they were the ones who witnesses it said, had either rented rented space in the basement or we're seeing trucking stuff and compartment building. Just wanted to make sure I why yeah, yeah. But then the head of the FSB stepped in and cleared things up. He called a press conference and he announced that the bomb in Rhason was a fake that have been placed there by

the FSB as quote a test of vigilance unquote. Yeah. He congratulated the people of Rhaison for their vigilance, and they even put on a little ceremony and gave the phone operator a new color TV as for her vigilance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the yeah. Even though not everybody buys into the accusation that the FSB and the Russian government were involved in this.

I have to say that Yeltsen certainly did in need some sort of provocation, you know, in order to either have be able to declare martial law, canceled the election, or two maybe go to war in chech d and and you know, sort of change the equation and make his his new president more popular so that he could he can win, he could stay in that office and protect Yeltsen after Yeltson left. That sounds this sounds really familiar. And I'm gonna use quotes when I say nine eleven

was an inside job. This this sounds like the same kind of of I've got, I've got the boogeyman, I'm going to find his trail. It's thinking, it's along those lines. The only problem with eleven theories is that there's there's a lot of them. There's not a shred of evidence. But in this, in this case, there is evidence. You think there is there is evidence, But I also the FSB operated with such a level of impunity. Is the word I want to use? Is that the right word? Yeah? Okay,

so it is the right word. Okay. They that they didn't bother to do anything to hide what they were doing. They just nobody's gonna stop us. Nobody's gonna do anything. And they could have been doing something completely unrelated and it got tight And do I think that. No, But that's why I'm just well, you don't have to be

I mean, it is entirely possible. But the fact of the matter is is they have been credibly accused in the Russian government Vladimir Putins mad they have been accused of being involved in in these bombings, and so things have happened since then. Remember I mentioned David Sader, the journalists who was living in Russi up until when he was expelled by the government because he was saying nasty

things about them. Yeah, he was, and he was researching some stuff like the apartment bombings that they weren't enthusiastic about him researching. And he and several other journalists formed a little committee when they agreed to work together, share information and and to not let this story die. The other journalists were named s Yshenkov. You I'm really murdering this on a on a Poblico show and Alexander Litvinenko

and so yeah, comes full circle does. Yeah, and uh, of that committee of journalists, the only one that is still alive is David Sader. Sergei and Anna were both shot to death, um, and you aready was poisoned, um with conventional poison. And I'm like, I'm like our guy, Alexander Litvinenko, who wasn't It wasn't your ree poisoned with some poison that was known to be used by the KGB for years as a preferred method of poisoning. Yeah, okay,

so and so so that's that's why everybody ties it back, okay. Yeah, and so you know, this is why I kind of like the Russian government involvement theory, because, you know, if these guys are just a bunch of crackpots just running around saying nine eleven was an inside job, you know, or the equivalent, what's the point of murdering them? But if, on the other hand, nine four was an inside job, yeah, nine four an inside job just doesn't roll off the tongue,

although in Russian maybe it does. Yeah. I don't think anything rolls off the tongue in Russian, al right, But so anyway, it could be anything could could be. So wait wait, wait, wait, wait, slow down here, back up. You've just dropped that, and then you're walking you just might drop this. Yeah, okay. So we started out talking about Litvinenko and the fact that he got poisoned with

a random bit of plutonium or polonium. Polonium that's made up word you finish, okay, And and now you've tied this all back to say that he's he actually was murdered by the Russian Federation for his activities in trying to expose things that were going on based on the apartment bombings. Essentially. Yeah, I think that that. You know, that's given that everybody that was pursuing this story either wound up I mean, and that wasn't just these four.

There were other people who were investigating who wound up getting arrested on bogus charges and locked up. I read through a death list on some website and it's like there's a dozen high name people. Yeah, it's not yet. And so it's not just these four either. There's tons of people who are killed or locked up or whatever. We're asking the wrong questions about the apartment bombings. Well, and here's the thing about polonium is that it's it's pretty obscure. Don't that a D and D character. But

the place that it's not so obscure is Russia. They actually use it for like coatings, to like coat certain metals. They know they don't use it, they use it in the process of coding certain metals. I don't think, no, they don't quote it in this, but there's some don't want some heat coating. You can use this alpha radiation

versus the gamma radiation. That's what makes polonium so like interesting, is its alpha not gamma, And so you can use the alpha radiation to more effectively coade things, or at least you could anymore. But it's also used often as an anti um static electricity things, so it it was put on brushes and things like that. Almost everything you read, at least you know on a cursory look of the Internet, that I did for this particular substance. Yeah, for polonium

to ten. Almost all of the uses you say is they'll say, like in Russia they use it for this, and in Russia they use it for that. In Russia they use it for this, so it's not everywhere else they do. So, I mean, it's not like it's just floating around in the air in Russia. But of the places that they use a Russia is the place they

use it. So they use it nuclear weapons too, don't they. Yeah, yeah, they have yeah, yeah, And so yeah, there's there's reason to believe that Livinenko was murdered by the Russians for his part and covering that story. The apartment at the Russia Department Buildings bombing, I think, I mean, it's I'm on board. And the whole thing worked out well for Yeltsin and for for Vladie, although Laddie I think is

pretty innocent, um, you know, just kidding. That's why he's sure list on a white horse running through the surf. This is not the end of the story. Joe Steve has something to say, some other made up story. You know, you have completely overlooked a fourth theory. It could have been anybody else in the Russian Federation. Well, no, here's the thing is that Levinenko, when he was in the FSB, he was in a anti uh it wasn't an anti corruption,

was anti gang league basically. Yeah, And so he fought gangs and he constantly screamed at everybody that everybody was corrupt and this place is riddled with corruption, and you've got to you've got to root it out, which is part of the reason that he left the country, because he pointed the finger at everybody. He then got to the UK, he wrote those two books, he constantly talked to the papers, and if you look at the things that he claims to the paper in the beginning, the

very small claims, they're they're they're believable claims. You know this, this happens in the Russian Federation and when I was at the FSB, this happened, which means this person is responsible for this. But those claims in those accusations, because nobody ever checked him. The freaking Guardian just ran with it. He realized he had a cash cow, and he kept making He kept making bigger and bigger stories and accusations.

And he wasn't just pointing at Putin and Yelson. He was pointing at all kinds of people all the time. So it's entirely possible that he pissed somebody off that wasn't even in the government. If indeed, there's all these gangs running around, there's a jillion people that could have said, you know what, I'm done, And the only thing that I want to finish on the is that it was an FSB officer that is tied to have taken the

Polonium or the Paladin or whatever it's called colonium. Right, he was KGB and I thought was he actually an FSB employee. I don't know that I wind up working for the OK or not. But the thing is is that because the FSB Russian Federation didn't have much money, they were going everything was going down the tanks. You were only supposed to work for the FSB, but it was okay. They turned a blind eye to moonlighting, which is what let Vinanko did for He was a bodyguard

for Boris thank you. I wasn't gonna be able to say that name. So he worked for Bearzovsky when the assassination threat came through. That one of the big ones. So it's entirely possible that this guy that is IDD was moonlighting for somebody else and operated under their orders.

So there's there's an entire are another pool of suspects and we haven't even taught it's no, it's possibly yeah, but it's that this is just a coincidence that that all these people in this committee got murdered, and but it could be. I mean, there were there KGB floating around. Who were you there for? Higher and so it's entirely possible. My only my only quival with that would be is that is that they used polonium, which is kind of hard to get your hands on if you're not actually

working for the Russian guys. Okay, Um, here's a theory. On that day that he met with the KGB people in the morning, former KGB whatever, Um, he had lunch with an Italian man? Was this who was a nuclear specialist? Yeah, I mean they had lunch together, So maybe the Italian guy poisoned them, except the Italian dude didn't die, Soian I didn't have to ingest it, you just had to administer it. Yeah, put in the guys. Yeah, and I could have put it in his t's true. What what

motive did he have though? I mean, I guess somebody hate him to do It's somebody like the Russian government or any anybody else. I mean, it's just this is you've cracked it open. And I get where you've gone with your train of thought. But and I get I understand where all these websites that we read are all pointed.

They they say, well, look at this chain of deaths, and all of these people were working on this one common story, But all of those people were also working on other things, human rights violations in all these other areas, stories about embezzlement and corruption in all these other areas. You know, So that it's it's a web that this just happens to be one of the correlations. And it may be that they were all murdered for different reasons by different groups. And it's just as much as I

am choking on saying this, it is a coincidence. Um, it's entirely possible. I doubt it, but you know, I had to admit I'm not convinced, you know, but I I have to say that they're my strongest suspects. When the list becomes as large as it is, I really I struggle with it. I mean, I get that the Russian government is not you know that, it's not as if they have clean white gloves on and they've never done a bad thing, and they've they've never committed an atrocity.

We all know they have. I just sometimes when I look at it, it's look at them, big brother is bad and here's all these people who died and the state said they didn't like them, so the state must have been responsible for their death. I get I get that. I mean, I just you know, I just think they're the logical suspects, that's all. I think. It's a bit like the G. E. C. Marconi story that we talked about recently. You know, yeah, that's it's a little, big

old chunk of people to die. And you know what Steve is saying is true. However, as an American, I think I am obligated to say it was definitely the Russian government. They are the big bad of this world, and it Okay, that's how I feel, all right, O. Cool, So we agree right on? Won two powers activate. I'll be I'll be over there sobbing in the corner. Yeah, I'm used to it. I cry in public all the time.

It's fine to not even at funerals, at weddings whatever. Alright, Well, so you guys have any other thoughts or should we wind us down? I think you too think you've solved it. Okay, yeah we did, we totally did. Uh. Well, let me tell you a few fun facts here. You're probably wondering if we have a website what we do. It's called Thinking Sideways podcast dot com and you can you can grab episodes off of there, listen to episodes. We don't

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pledge a certain amount, then that's every episode. If you pledge like a buck, then you know, we get a buck from you for every episode we drop. Yep. Yeah, And so that's about it. None of that, None of that stuff is necessary, but if you feel like it, please do. All right, guys, any other thoughts here before we go. I love Laddie Gladdie. I like Laddy too, and I think he's totally innocent. Yeah, I think he's the most beautiful, illustrious leader we've ever seen in this world.

And m yeah, I just love his hairstyle. I'm emulating it right for years working on that that putin. Look, I just wish that was as handsome as he was. All right, well, please don't kill us to bed. Yeah,