You can spend hours reading and learning about the assassination and life of Sasha Litvinenko — And you should. His name is worth knowing. His story is worth telling. I’m writing this because several weeks after “Poke the Bear” came out, I decided to search something on the internet. I found a one minute video that I could not believe was real. I couldn’t believe I had never seen it before.

I couldn’t look away.

Looking away is how we got here.

This timeline is directly from those who didn’t look away. Call it a mixtape.

1980s: “One of those the KGB routinely surveilled [at the British embassy in Moscow] was a 27-year-old diplomat [Christopher Steele]… The “diplomat” was a British intelligence officer … The young officer’s true employer was an invisible entity back in London — SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6.” 🔗

1993: “By the time Steele left Moscow, the Soviet Union had gone. A new country, led by Yeltsin, had replaced it: the Russian Federation. The KGB had been dissolved, but its officers hadn’t exactly disappeared. They still loathed the US and were merely biding their time.”🔗

1996: “Litvinenko is asked to join a new unit of the FSB (formerly the KGB), which is set up to combat organised crime and known as URPO. It was later revealed that the unit fought crime with illegal methods. An increasingly disillusioned Litvinenko later revolts when he is given an order to assassinate Berezovsky and informs the oligarch of the plot.”🔗

On July 5, 1998, “Putin was appointed by President Yeltsin as Director of the FSB. He had found his way to the position of top law enforcement officer in all of Russia on weak qualifications — and after serving a stint as Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg. [CitJourno] details this history and its importance later in this document, but state here for you to know now: 1) St. Petersburg’s Mayor was a politician owned and controlled by the Russian mob; 2) Putin was hand-picked by this same mob to ascend to power, because he is their puppet.”🔗

“On November 17, 1998, something extraordinary happened in Moscow. A high-ranking member of the organized crime unit at the FSB (Russia’s FBI) held a press conference. His name was Alexander Litvinenko, and he told the world that Russia’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies had been taken over by organized crime. He called Russia a “Mafia State.””🔗 “[Litvinenko] is dismissed from the FSB and jailed in Moscow, with prosecutors charging him for misconduct within the FSB. He spends eight months in prison.”🔗

“In December 1999 Yeltsin resigned as president, appointing Putin acting president until official elections were held (in early 2000).”🔗

2000: “Litvinenko, wife Marina and their young son Anatoly flee Russia and gain political asylum in Britain [in May 2001] — with the help of Berezovsky, who puts them up in a house in north London. Litvinenko is an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin. In 2002 he co-writes the book Blowing Up Russia in which it is alleged the FSB was behind the apartment block bombing in Russia in 1999 that killed more than 300 people.”🔗 (Movie)

2002:”[Litvinenko begins] investigating Russian connections to organised crime networks throughout Europe, including Spain. Also starts working for the Mitrokhin Commission, which was set up to probe Soviet links with politicians in Italy. His contact is Mario Scaramella, whom he relays intelligence to.”🔗

“In 2004 Spanish prosecutors created a formal strategy to “behead” the Russian mafia. The Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, an expert on Russian organised crime, helped the police investigation. It was Litvinenko who, according to US diplomats, coined the phrase “mafia state”.”🔗

We didn’t find out for a decade, but on November 23 2005 a recording was made: “My name is Alexander Litvinenko. I am former KGB officer. It’s 23rd of November. Now I stay in London. Now 3 o’clock pm.” 🔊

Semion Mogilevich at Vladmir Putin’s campaign headquarters in 2000

“Mogilevich have good relationship with Putin since 1994 or 1993…Semion Mogilevich is best person who is wanted FBI. And Semion Mogilevich has contact with Al Qaeda. Semion Mogilevich sell weapons, sell weapons to Al Qaeda. Before I gave a lot of information about Mogilevich to Mario Scaramella.” 🔗 “By 2006, Steele held a senior post at MI6’s Russia desk in London. There were ominous signs that Putin was taking Russia in an aggressive direction. The number of hostile Russian agents in the UK grew, surpassing cold war levels. Steele tracked a new campaign of subversion and covert influence.”🔗

July 2006: Litvinenko accuses Vladimir Putin of being a Pedophile and destroying evidence of it in the FSB. “When Putin became the FSB director and was preparing for presidency, he began to seek and destroy any compromising materials collected against him by the secret services over earlier years. It was not difficult, provided he himself was the FSB director. Among other things, Putin found videotapes in the FSB Internal Security Directorate, which showed him making sex with some underage boys.”

“2006: Litvinenko is angered by the assassination of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and begins investigating her death. On November 1, he meets Scaramella and the Italian warns him of a murder plot. Litvinenko dismisses the concerns and on the same day attends a meeting with Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun to discuss a business opportunity. He begins to feel ill that night and dies 22 days later on Nov 23.“🔗

“2006: Alexander Litvinenko had drunk contaminated tea at his meeting at the Millennium Hotel. He was being killed from the inside. On that Wednesday night, 22 November, doctors at UCH were informed that the poison was probably polonium-210. Not that there was much they could do. Once Litvinenko had drunk the contaminated tea on 1 November, there was no going back. This was a death sentence.” 🔗 British authorities found a trail of Polonium-210 across London. (Map)

He released a statement:

“… as I lie here I can distinctly hear the beating of wings of the angel of death. I may be able to give him the slip but I have to say my legs do not run as fast as I would like. I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition. You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilized value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilized men and women. You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.

2006: “MI6 picked Christopher Steele to investigate. One reason for this was that he wasn’t emotionally involved with the case, unlike some of his colleagues who had known the victim. He quickly concluded the Russian state had staged the execution.”🔗

7 December 2006 — Leaked Cable: “Fried commented that the short-term trend inside Russia was negative, noting increasing indications that the UK investigation into the murder of Litvinenko could well point to some sort of Russian involvement.” “MGM wondered aloud who might have given the order, but speculated the murder probably involved a settling of accounts between services rather than occurring under direct order from the Kremlin.” “[But] Fried, noting Putin's attention to detail, questioned whether rogue security elements could operate, in the UK no less, without Putin's knowledge. Describing the current atmosphere as strange, he described the Russians as increasingly self-confident, to the point of arrogance”.🔗

March 2014: Speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference a few days [after Russia’s annexation of Crimea], Trump said that Putin had seized “the heart and soul” of Ukraine. “That means the rest of Ukraine will fall,” he added. But in recent weeks [2016], Trump has sounded far more forgiving of Putin’s aggression, which has worsened with the entrenchment of pro-Russian separatist fighters in the country’s east, where nearly 10,000 people have been killed in the fighting. Trump now says that he is “going to take a look” at recognizing Crimea as Russian territory, and that he would consider lifting those same sanctions. “The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were, “ Trump said, echoing a frequent Kremlin talking point. 🔗

In August 2012 [Sir Robert Owen] was appointed to conduct what were then the inquest proceedings concerning the death of Alexander Litvinenko. On July 22, 2014 the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, the Rt Hon Theresa May MP, announced, in a written statement laid before the House of Commons, that an Inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 was to be held into the death of Alexander Litvinenko.🔗

October 2015: When Trump is asked about the downing of flight MH-17: “That’s a horrible thing that happened," he said. "It’s disgusting and disgraceful but Putin and Russia say they didn’t do it, the other side said they did, no one really knows who did it, probably Putin knows who did it. Possibly it was Russia but they are totally denying it."🔗 A Dutch probe recently indicted several Russians for their role in the attack.

January 2016: The Litvinenko Inquiry. “When Mr. Lugovoy poisoned Mr Litvinenko (as I have found that he did), it is probable that he did so under the direction of the FSB. I would add that I regard that as a strong probability. I have found that Mr Kovtun also took part in the poisoning; I conclude therefore that he was also acting under FSB direction, possibly indirectly through Mr Lugovoy but probably to his knowledge.” “Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me, I find that the FSB operation to kill Mr. Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin.”

The Video

January 26, 2016: Trump: “Well I don’t know that anythings been determined. I mean, you’re telling me something, I don’t know — Has Putin said — Have they found him guilty? I don’t think they’ve found him guilty. They say a lot of things about me that are untrue too.” Maria: “If Putin said “we’re gonna murder somebody in America” and then there’s all this radioactive stuff all over America and you’re president, are you going to do anything about it?”

Trump: “If he did it — fine — but but I don’t know that he did it. People are saying they “think it was him”, “it might’ve been him”, “it could’ve been him”, but Maria, in all fairness to Putin — I don’t know — I’m not saying this because he says Trump is brilliant and leading everybody. The fact is that, you know, he hasn’t been convicted of anything. You know, some people say he absolutely didn’t do it — First of all he says he didn’t do it — But many people say it wasn’t him — So who knows who did it?”

“In June 2016, Steele typed up his first memo. He sent it to Fusion. It arrived via enciphered mail. The headline read: US Presidential Election: Republican Candidate Donald Trump’s Activities in Russia and Compromising Relationship with the Kremlin. Its text began: “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in the western alliance.””🔗

“In a summer 2018 call with Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump harangued the British leader about her country’s contribution to NATO. He then disputed her intelligence community’s conclusion that Putin’s government had orchestrated the attempted murder and poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil.”🔗

And then, the unforgettable: