The Moscow home of the son of Alexander Litvinenko, the defector killed with polonium-210 in London in 2006, has been visited by recruiting officers from the Russian army hoping to sign him up.
Anatoly Litvinenko, 28, has revealed that he was called up for military service in Ukraine a few weeks ago by soldiers who seemed unaware of his tragic history with Vladimir Putin’s regime.
“Around mid-October, almost a month after Putin called for the partial mobilisation in Russia, there was a knock at the door of the apartment of the Moscow flat registered as my official residence,” he writes on Sunday in the Observer, before the broadcast of a new television drama telling the story of his father’s poisoning at the hands of Russian assassins.
“The family friends who currently reside there opened the door and were greeted by two officers from the Russian military administration, who asked whether I was at home. They informed them that I had not been home in over 20 years,” he said this weekend.
The ITV drama series Litvinenko, which begins on 15 December, stars David Tennant in the role of his father. Since it is based on interviews with the Metropolitan police who headed the investigation, both in London and in Moscow, Anatoly and his mother, Marina, believe it is a comprehensive and accurate account of the events that led to the murder.
“I really wanted a drama to tell this story: a kind of justice, if we are to get no other real justice,” said Marina, speaking last month, the day before the 16th anniversary of her husband’s death. “I also believe that it may remind people, given what is happening now, of everything we missed, or did not pay enough attention to before.”
The drama, written by George Kay, creator of the hit French series Lupin, was adapted from a 2017 documentary made by Richard Kerbaj, who is also a co-producer of the new drama. “From speaking to Clive Timmons, the senior investigating officer on the case, I know his team are proud of the work they did to find what he and the team have called the ‘smoking teapot’ – the crucial evidence that illustrates the guilt of Andrei Lugovoi and the late Dmitry Kovtun, the agents who were sent over to kill Alexander,” Kerbaj said.
The proof gathered by the Met could still be used if Lugovoi is ever extradited to face trial in Britain.
Kerbaj added: “We are also so grateful to David Tennant for keeping this project alive during the pandemic. I know that Marina, who sees this drama as part of her campaign for justice, is relieved that the story – thanks to him and to the faith of an executive producer, Lucy Bedford – will now be more widely known again.
“When I showed Marina the finished drama, she was clearly moved. It was very confronting and painful. But that is a true homage to the acting.”
Marina, 60, is accustomed to seeing herself portrayed in productions. The story has already been told in the theatre, by playwright Lucy Prebble in A Very Expensive Poison, and on the opera stage last year in The Life and Death of Alexander Litvinenko by Anthony Bolton and Kit Hesketh-Harvey.
But Litvinenko’s widow said she has been amazed by Tennant’s commitment to the project. Her faith in the idea that the story would ever be filmed had been shaken by early abortive attempts in the US, one of which involved the director Michael Mann.
“When I first saw what David has done, it was really unbelievable,” she said. “This was not simply acting; it was very much from their heart. I knew this drama would be very close and accurate to what I believe happened.”
The four-part series also shows the alleged tensions between the British police and the secret service chiefs in London, who were initially worried that the investigation into the murder would threaten cooperation with Russia in the fight against Islamist terrorism.
At the end of a 10-year battle, the international courts agreed that Russia, under Putin’s leadership, was responsible for Litvinenko’s murder.
Lugovoi is now a politician and businessman, and a deputy in the state Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament.
