 Today's Russia is the same as yesterday's
Russia's special services, of which Putin has once been an officer, are the successors of the most cruel and lasting secret police in the world.
By Paolo Guzzanti
It was only because President George Bush was on the other end of the line that Vladimir Putin promised, through clenched teeth, to 'do everything possible' to find the murderers of Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who impersonated the forbidden democracy in the darkness of today's Russia. By now, Russia has lost every hope for a development of democracy, and rapidly proceeds towards a disguised dictatorship.
That was a shock for the whole world, and, perhaps, a twice greater one for me. For Anna Politkovskaya and myself used the same source of information, namely the prominent officer of Russian special services, former Lieutenant-colonel Alexander Litvinenko, who has now found refuge in London.
Anna Politkovskaya was killed not only for her criticism of Putin over human rights and freedoms, but also for her using the information from Litvinenko to accuse Putin of mongering and maintaining the war in Chechnya, in order to consolidate his dictatorial powers.
According to Politkovskaya and Litvinenko, there are two kinds of Chechen terrorism, – true and false. The latter is created by Russian special services and exercised by the hands of their agents. It were they who planned the series of cruel terrorist attacks to guarantee a freehand for the Kremlin to encircle the Russian democracy with barbed wire.
Since Anna's death, a psychological trauma has pursued me. It also followed me on Monday the 9th of October, when I went to Teramo to testify in the legal trial of several Ukrainians, who had been arrested there a year ago. They were caught trying to smuggle hand-grenades in Bibles with pages cut out. They headed to a Russian sniper, who had some targets to use the hand-grenades in Naples. As I have heard from the trial, I was one of the next targets.
The connection between these two events is that it was Politkovskaya's friend Litvinenko, in his London exile, who supplied information which allowed to stop the transportation and to arrest the smugglers.
While Anna Politkovskaya stayed in Russia until her death, Litvinenko chose to flee from Russia to join the community of exiled Russians in London, which includes Vladimir Bukovsky, Oleg Gordievsky (a former KGB officer as high-ranking as Putin) and, now deceased, the unfortunate civil hero Vasili Mitrokhin – the man who, after the collapse of USSR and KGB, smuggled to Britain the list of Moscow's high-ranking recruits in Europe (including Italy).
Politkovskaya, who kept in touch with Mitrokhin for a long time, often spoke on radio and wrote explosive articles for Novaya Gazeta. The latter is the same newspaper which, after Anna's death, published her article with accusations against Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov, "Prime Minister" of Chechnya, who is often called a puppet of the Kremlin. Four gun shots in the elevator in her Moscow house have shut Anna Politkovskaya's mouth. Putin's people were quick to announce that, in Russian president's opinion, she was killed by her enemies in order to "discredit the Russian authorities". This line of accusation is identical to the one used by Benito Mussolini, who claimed that the murder of Jacombo Matteoti was committed in order to damage himself and the Fascism.
I keep with me the most famous book by Anna Politkoskaya Putin's Russia. This book is not a source of ancient wisdom, but rather a vivid, fascinating notebook reflecting the current events. It is about the post-Soviet Russia, full of communists, Mafiosi, former KGB agents, old and new extremists, who meet each other, in a mock capitalism scenario, in brothels and casinos. This is Russia where the development of democracy is paralyzed by the common fear, against the background of slaughter in Chechnya.
I can add yet another thing, which I discovered thanks to Politkoskaya, and which surprised and disgusted me. As the chairman of the commission for the investigation of the Mitrokhin case, I clearly understand that Russian special services today are merely a renamed successors of the most cruel and lasting secret police in the world, in which the Russian president used to be a high-ranking officer working in Berlin. It is the same thing as if the Gestapo or the SS would start functioning in today's Germany, under a different name, but with the same employees.
It was a shock and disappointment in my search for the truth, when Anna Politkovskaya, who had never stopped fighting for the truth and freedom in her country, paid with her life, returning home one evening.
Published in Panorama, Italy, on 19 October 2006
Translated from Italian by Elina Shovkhalova
Paolo Guzzanti is an Italian journalist and Senator, who chaired the parliamentary commission for the investigation of KGB activities in Italy.
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