The ironic stares of Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush at the monument entitled To The Struggle Against World Terrorism, at New York Harbor.

(The following excerpts are from the new book by Yuri Felshtinsky and Vladimir Pribilovsky, "The Corporation", a volume that lays bare the history of the FSB (KGB) right up to the present day. Not only is False Flag terror commonplace for the FSB, it seems certain now, if there was any doubt before, that FSB agents killed Felshtinsky's writing partner, Alexander Litvinenko. A very detailed book, recommended reading for anyone seeking to understand how "intelligence agencies" go about their business. -rep.)

Chechnya had become the weakest link in Russia's multinational mosaic, but the KGB raised no objections when Dzhokhar Dudayev came to power there because they regarded him as one of their own. General Dudayev, a member of the CPSU since 1968, was transferred from Estonia to his hometown of Grozny as if deliberately in order to oppose the local Communists, to be elected president of the Chechen Republic, and to proclaim the independence of Chechnya (Ichkeria) in November 1991 - as if to show the Russian political elite what kind of disintegration was in store for Russia under Yeltsin's liberal regime. It was probably no accident that another Chechen who was close to Yeltsin, Ruslan Khasbulatov, would also be responsible for inflicting fatal damage on his regime. A former functionary of the Komsomol's Central Committee and a Communist Party member since 1966, Khasbulatov had become speaker of the Russian parliament in September 1991. It was precisely this Khasbulatov-led parliament that Yeltsin would forcibly dissolve - using tanks - in 1993.

By 1994, the political leadership of Russia was already aware that it could not afford to grant independence to Chechnya. Allowing sovereign status for Chechnya would make the disintegration of Russia a genuine possibility. But could they afford to start a civil war in the North Caucasus? The "party of war," which relied on the military and law enforcement ministries, believed they could afford it as long as the public was prepared for it, and it would be easy enough to influence public opinion if the Chechens were seen to resort to terror tactics in their struggle for independence. All that was needed was to arrange terrorist attacks in Moscow and leave a trail leading back to Chechnya.

On November 18, 1994, the FSB made its first recorded attempt to stir up anti-Chechen feeling by committing an act of terrorism and laying the blame on Chechen separatists. An explosion took place on a railroad track crossing the Yauza River in Moscow. According to experts, it was caused by two powerful charges of approximately 1.5 kilograms of TNT. About twenty meters of the railroad bed was ripped up, and the bridge almost collapsed. It was quite clear, however, that the explosion had occurred prematurely, before the next train was due to cross the bridge. The shattered fragments of the bomber's body were discovered about one hundred meters from the site of the explosion. He was Captain Andrei Schelenkov, an employee of the Lanako oil company. His own bomb had blown him up as he was planting it on the bridge.

It was only thanks to this blunder that the immediate organizers of the terrorist attacks became known. Lanako's boss - who had given his firm a name beginning with the first two letters of his own last name - was thirty-five-year-old Maksin Lazovsky, a highly valued agent of the FSB office for Moscow and the Moscow region, also known simply as "Max." It would later become known that every single one of Lanako's employees was a full-time freelance agent of the Russian security services, and that all subsequent terrorist attacks in Moscow during 1994-1995 were also organized by Lazokovsky's group. In 1996, the terrorists from the FSB were arrested and convicted by a Moscow court. But by that time, the first Chechen war had become a fait accompli. Lazovsky had done his job.

War in Chechnya offered a very easy way to finish off Yeltsin politically, a fact understood only too well by those who provoked the war and organized the terrorist attacks in Russia. pp 25-26.

Near the end of the book, Felshtinsky encapsulates the death of Alexander Litvinenko, who was a key player in getting information out to the public about False Flag terror acts undertaken by the KGB;

The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko

Yegor Gaidar was poisoned on November 24. Alexander Litvinenko died on the evening of November 23. This is one angle of a polygon.

Andrei Lugovi was in charge of Gaidar's security, he was in charge of Boris Berezovsky's security, and he took part in the poisoning of Litvinenko. This is the second angle of the polygon.

There is some kind of connection between the murder of Anna Politkovskaya in October and the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in November. This is the third angle of the polygon.

Alexander Litvinenko and Roman Tsepov were poisoned by the same people. By finding Tsepov's killers, one can also track down Litvinenko's killers. And conversely, by determining who killed Litvinenko, one can solve Tsepov's murder. This is the fourth and probably the most important angle of the polygon.

And there are many other angles that are not immediately apparent or not so obvious: the poisoning of Yuri Schekochikhin, the attempt to poison Viktor Yuschenko, the sudden death of Antony Sobchak...

There are also some very small and almost undescribed angles. But it would be wrong to leave them out of this chapter simply because they contain no direct proof of murder. For example, the death from leukemia on July 20, 2005, at the age of fifty-seven, of Nikolai Aksenenko, former railways minister, former deputy prime minister, and then first deputy prime minister. After the resignation of yevgeny Primakov in May 1999, it was Aksenenko who was supposed to become prime minister and then Yeltsin's successor as president of Russia. His candidacy was supported by Boris Berezovsky, among others. In fact, Aksenenko's candidacy for the post of prime minister had already been signed by Yeltsin and submitted to the Duma for a vote. But at the very last moment, the all-powerful hands of the FSB replaced Aksenenko with the former director of the FSK-FSB, Sergei Stepahshin, and then gradually squeezed Aksenenko out of the government altogether. On January 10, 2000, Aksenenko was relieved of his duties as first deputy prime minister; in 2001, criminal proceedings were initiated against him; in 2002, he was dismissed from the post of railways minister. In 2003, Aksenenko developed leukemia, traveled to Germany for treatment, and died there.

In October 2006, the polygon of murders was known only to those who had planned them.

"Congratulate me. I just became a British citizen. Now they won't dare to touch me. No one would try to kill a British citizen."

These were the words with which Alexander Litvinenko greeted Yuri Felshtinsky in London on October 13, 2006, at a memorial service for Anna Politkovskaya, who had just been killed. Nineteen days later, on November 1, Litvinenko was poisoned.

On that day he met with several people who had come to London from other countries: FSB agent Andrei Lugovoi, FSB agent Dmitry Kovtun, FSB agent Vyacheslav Sokolenko, and apparently one more - unknown and unidentified - agent of the FSB. (Or maybe Litvinenko did not meet this fourth agent on this day, although the agent, apparently, was also in London and took part in their meeting without being noticed by Litivenenko.) With his former colleagues from the FSB, Litvinenko drank green tea. Finally, he also met with Mario Scaramella, an Italian citizen, in Picadilly at three in the afternoon. He ate sushi and drank mineral water at a Japanese restaurant. Scaramella did not eat; he only drank.

In the evening, Litvinenko felt ill and began to vomit. Realizing that he had been poisoned, he dissolved some potassium permanganate in water - a common Russian treatment, which he learned in the army - and started drinking it and throwing up intermittently. He had stomach spasms and difficulty breathing, his temperature dropped, his pulse became irregular. This is how Litvinenko spent the first day after his poisoning.

On November 2, Litvinenko got a call from Andrei Lugovoi. They had agreed earlier to meet on that day, but Litvinenko told Lugovoi that he was sick and would not be able to keep the appointment. An ambulance was called. The doctor said that it was a seasonal infection. Litvinenko was told to drink water. He continued vomiting, but some kind of foamy liquid started coming out of his mouth approximately every twenty minutes. He had stomach cramps and developed severe diarrhea with blood.

Lugovoi and company flew back to Russia on November 3, when it became clear that their mission had been accomplished. Meanwhile, former FSB Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Litvinenko - who had spent his whole life working in the Russian military and the KGB, who had entered into conflict with the KGB-FSB in 1998, who had spent nine months in prison in 1999, who had fled from Russia in October 2000, who had written (as a co-author) the book Blowing Up Russia in 2001, and who had since then published dozens of articles against the FSB and Putin - had no idea on November 2, 2006, that his three former colleagues from the FSB had added a slow-acting poison to his green tea. Had such an idea occurred to him on November 2, though, Scotland Yard would not have had to request Lugovoi's extradition from Russia.

Another doctor was called on November 3. He said that Litvinenko was suffering from an infection, but did not rule out the possibility of poisoning. (No one suspected deliberate poisoning yet.) An ambulance was called again and Litvinenko was taken to the hospital, where he was put on an IV and his blood was taken. The results of the blood analysis were not bad, but the doctors said he should remain at the hospital. Alexander was promised that he would be able to leave in three or four days. His wife, Marina, said they would keep him at the hospital for the time being, since they had found some kind of bacteria. Litvinenko kept his condition secret; neither his friends nor the police were told anything about it. He did not want people to find out that he had gotten food poisoning from sushi. Who knows - later on he might be poisoned for real but everyone would think it was just food poisoning again, as on November 1, 2006.

By the time a week had passed, Alexander could not eat or drink, and he had lost thrity-three pounds. He realized that he had been poisoned, but thought he had saved himself by washing out his stomach with potassium permanganate.

"You known, if I were given a choice: either to go through all this a second time or to spend a year in a Russian prison, I would choose a year in prison, honestly. You can't imagine how bad I feel," he told Yuri Felshtinsky.

But Alexander no longer had the option of spending a year in prison. He had only fifteen days of suffering left.

Rows of abscesses appeared in his throat. Doctors thought that was a reaction to the antibiotics - the flora had been killed and an irritation had appeared. After another couple of days, the patient could no longer open his mouth. All the mucous membranes were inflamed. Litvinenko's hair started to fall out. At this point, doctors thought his spinal marrow had been harmed. He was transferred to the cancer ward. The initial theory of thallium poisoning appeared, and the police became involved in the investigation. Litvinenko was prescribed a thallium antidote ("Prussian Blue"). But the antidote was useless, since it could have worked only during the first forty-eight hours after the poisoning, and a week had already passed. Moreover, the antidote was effective against thallium, but Alexander had been poisoned with polonium-210. This became known only on November 23, a couple of hours before his death, when Litvinenko's urine was sent for analysis to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston - the only laboratory in the U.K. that could detect radiation poisoning by an agent that emitted alpha radiation.

If Litvinenko had not managed to hang on until November 23, for reasons that were not clear to anyone, then we would never have known that he had been poisoned with polonium; that a group of FSB agents had taken part in the poisoning; that the poison had come from Moscow; and that the participants of the operation had flown back to Moscow. We would still have thought that Litvinenko's death raised more questions than it answered, and that there was a chance he had died of food poisoning or an allergic reaction to sushi.

From a ticket for city bus No. 134 that was found in his pocket, British investigators established that Litvinenko had not been contaminated with polonium-210 when he went to meet with Lugovoi and his colleagues, and that the exact scene of Alexander's poisoning was was the Millenium Hotel. The bus ticket had been purchased near Litvinenko's home in North London. From there, Litvinenko had gone to meet with the men from the FSB at the Millenium Hotel. It was the first location that Litvinenko visited after he got off the bus. Traces of polonium-210 were found on the cup and saucer from which Litvinenko had drunk green tea with the Soviet agents. It followed from all this that it was not Litvinenko who had brought polonium to his meeting with Lugovoi and company, but the group of FSB operatives from Moscow who had brought polonium with them for their meeting with Litvinenko.

We will undoubtedly find out every detail about all the angles in this mysterious polygon of murders. We will find out how Litvinenko's poisoning was prepared and who signed the order to kill him. But this will happen later, not today. We learned the details of the operation to kill Trotsky fifty years after the event. From the perspective of history, this isn't a long time to wait. pp. 484-488.