The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko
London, 2006
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian security service (FSB) living in exile in London and a critic of the Kremlin, drank green tea from a pot at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel, in Grosvenor Square, on November 1, 2006, at a meeting with the former agents Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun. He fell ill that night, was admitted to hospital and died on November 23 at University College Hospital. Only shortly before his death did the doctors identify the poison: polonium-210, an extremely rare radioactive isotope.
The police followed the trail of radiation across more than 40 places in London, including hotels, offices, a restaurant, a car and aircraft, and uncovered an earlier attempt, on October 16, at a meeting in an office in Mayfair, after which Litvinenko had also fallen ill. The United Kingdom requested Lugovoi's extradition in 2007, and Russia refused. In January 2016, the public inquiry chaired by Sir Robert Owen concluded that the two men killed him, probably under the direction of the FSB and with the probable approval of Nikolai Patrushev and Vladimir Putin. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights held Russia responsible.
Sources
In the game
The Green Teapot
The bar of a luxury hotel in central London. On November 1, at 4 pm, Pavel Orlov drank green tea at the corner table and fell ill the same night.
The game borrows the meeting in a hotel bar, the teapot, the earlier attempt in October and the trail of the poison to a room and a bathroom. The characters, the dialogue and the outcome are fiction.
