Fatal Quad: Who Is Assassinating MI6 Assets On British Soil?

Source: The Millennial Report

March 15, 2018

Written by ORIENTAL REVIEW

Last week it was widely reported that a former Soviet and Russian military intelligence officer, Sergey Skripal — who had been working for MI6 since 1995 and had been convicted in Russia of high treason in 2006 before being released to the UK as part of the 2010 US-Russia spy swap — was found unconscious with his daughter on a public bench near a shopping center in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. In Britain, the media and eccentric foreign minister were swift to blame Russian intelligence services of attempting to assassinate Skripal, who is currently still in coma in Salisbury District Hospital. In the past week the hysteria of the British press has escalated to the point of forcing PM Theresa May to issue a ridiculous statement on the matter last Thursday.

This tragic case is one more episode in a series of suspicious and unsolved deaths in Britain of valuable MI6 assets from Russia: Alexander Litvinenko (2006), Alexander Perepеlichny (2012), and Boris Berezovsky (2013).

Alexander Litvinenko

This former officer in Russia's FSB intelligence service, who was in charge of the surveillance and later the protection of the oligarch and government official Boris Berezovsky in the 1990s, defected to Britain in November 2000, soon after Russian prosecutors revived the Aeroflot fraud investigation and Berezovsky was once again questioned in court. That was at a time when the oligarch's empire was being decimated by ongoing legal attacks instigated by the Russian government. Berezovsky clearly realised that he would eventually find himself in prison in Russia and so he began his quest for asylum, which would allow him to continue his political battle against the recently elected young Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is unclear whether Litvinenko defected at Berezovsky's direct order or merely feared prosecution for crimes he might have committed as part of his collaboration with the oligarch who, according to the late Paul Klebnikov, was one of the kingpins of the Russian criminal world. As Litvinenko was not granted asylum in the UK until May 2001, we suspect that the negotiations over the terms of Litvinenko's surrender to British intelligence services were not so easy. He did not possess any valuable intelligence, as he specialised in criminal investigation and security at the FSB, therefore he could be utilised only as a propaganda tool. This was the role he eventually accepted, after months of failed attempts to dodge this assignment, and he became a journalist for Chechenpress, supporting the most radical and intractable wing of the separatist movement in the Russian Caucasus, in addition to writing defamatory books and actively participating in every anti-Russia propaganda campaign in the international media.

From left to right: Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Serezovsky, Chechen leader Ahmed Zakaev, and the hired-gun writer Yury Felshtinsky celebrating Berezovsky’s 60th birthday in London, Jan 2006. 

A few days after receiving his long-awaited British passport in October 2006, he was featured in the headlines of all the mainstream global media as the "polonium victim of Putin's bloody regime", thus greatly increasing the global emotional payoff from the modest investments MI6 had put into this miserable figure. An examination of the time line of his stay on "hospitable" British soil suggests that his citizenship was a milestone he had been desperately awaiting so as to free himself of his shameful dependency on Her Majesty's intelligence service. Once that was obtained, he was off the hook and then became the perfect sacred sacrifice on the altar of the ongoing anti-Russia campaign. Thus they danced on his bones.

The inquiry into his death, ordered by then-Interior Minister Theresa May in July 2014 (!), was completed by January 2016 and the findings publicly released. William Dunkerley offered an exhaustive diagnosis of that report in his opinion piece, published in the Guardian shortly thereafter. We strongly recommend that our readers reacquaint themselves with his arguments. In a nutshell, he exposes the document as having been heavily influenced by the anti-Russia PR campaign, inconsistent, unreliable, biased, of dubious credibility, and lacking evidence.

Boris Berezovsky

The "Godfather" of the Kremlin, as Paul Klebnikov branded him in the book that eventually claimed his life, Boris Berezovsky was the personification of the oligarchy at its ugliest. He acted as the éminence grise to President Yeltsin in the 1990s, raking in vast profits for his business empire and attempting to manipulate the political process in Russia. He even reportedly "approved" the candidacy of Vladimir Putin as Yeltsin's successor back in 1999, confident that he and his circle would be able to curb and control the neophyte politician.

His aspirations were soon subjected to a cold shower. Three weeks after Putin's first inauguration, the Berezovsky-controlled media launched a powerful campaign of opposition to the president's plans to reform Russia's federal system, which would deprive Berezovsky and other tycoons of the tools they used to manipulate the regional authorities. These were the first maneuvers in a political war which lasted for more than 12 years. Berezovsky was resolutely and methodically squeezed out of all official positions in Russia, a number of charges were filed against him, accusing him of abusing his powers, financial fraud, and other crimes. In late 2000 he left Russia for good, settled in London, and began his vigorous, costly, but ultimately futile efforts to oust Putin and regain his own influence over the Kremlin.

Boris Berezovsky in London

By September 2012, when Vladimir Putin was elected for his third term and after Berezovsky had lost his case against his business rival Roman Abramovich in London's High Court, he surrendered. He wrote two resentful private letters to President Putin asking for forgiveness and permission to return to Russia without fear of arrest. He did not receive a formal reply of any kind from the Russian president, but perhaps by March 2013 he had been given some kind of other positive signals from Moscow. Those close to him claimed that he was full of life and optimism and plans for the future on the very date of March 23, 2013 on which he was found dead in a bathroom of his home near Ascot. The official investigation concluded that it had been "an act of suicide", but failed to provide any supporting evidence. The most likely explanation is that he had been about to leave Britain for good, along with his fiancée Katerina Sabirova (she had purchased e-tickets for travel to Israel that were to be used on March 25, 2013), and so the MI6 spymasters, who were in charge of supervising "project Berezovsky" and had been closely monitoring him and were aware of his intentions, could not afford to let out of their reach.

Please go to The Millennial Report to read the entire article.
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Further reading:

Are 'Novichok' Poisons Real? - May's Claims Fall Apart

Russian diplomats denied access to Skripal