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Saturday, May 26, 2007
At Cannes, an attack against Putin
Russian director Andrei Nekrasov launched an attack against the administration of President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, airing a documentary at the Cannes Film Festival that accused him of being behind a series of crimes, including the bombings of Moscow apartments, the killings of journalists and the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko.
“Rebellion: The Litvinenko Case” features interviews with friends, family and enemies of the slain former spy, who was allegedly poisoned with radioactive polonium 210 last November in London.
Litvinenko spent hours with Nekrasov, explaining on film the reasons for his rebellion and detailing the rise of a police state in modern-day Russia.
“It is not okay, in my opinion, to be the pure apolitical artist because it feels like turning the blind eye to crime,” Nekrasov said in a written statement issued to reporters. “And as far as the Litvinenko affair goes, turning the blind eye, for me, means cowardice. Because if your pal is killed, what do you do? You find out who did it, and go after them.”
The documentary is sure to heighten tensions between London and Moscow, which have been at a low point ever since the poisoning of Litvinenko in London last year. Litvinenko and his family fled to London in 2000, where he became a British subject and a vocal exile who was critical of the Putin government.
Earlier this week, Ken Macdonald, director of British prosecutions, said he had “concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoi with the murder of Mr. Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning.”
But the Russian government refused to turn over Lugovoi, saying it would be a violation of the constitution. And Logovoi dismissed the charges as “propaganda.” Lugovoi had tea with Litvinenko in London on the day of the poisoning.
The documentary that premiered Saturday paints an overall picture of Putin that details his rise to power through devious means. One segment discusses his years in college, where he offered to be a KGB informant against intellectual dissidents.
The bombings of the Moscow apartments in 1999 were allegedly staged to win political support for Putin, who wanted to invade Chechnya, according to various people interviewed in the documentary. The bombings were publicly blamed on Chechnyan terrorists.
The documentary also raises questions about Putin’s involvement in the rising number of slain Russian journalists, especially in the death of one who was investigating the Moscow bombings.
And Litvinenko publicly accuses Putin of being behind his poisoning, as he did in a letter released shortly before his death.
Litvinenko said he parted ways with the Russian secret police, now known as the FSB, after he realized that he would be ordered to kill people who were judged enemies of the state, just as the KGB had. Disillusioned with where he saw his country headed, he wrote a book, “Blowing Up Russia,” that detailed his investigations of the bombings of apartment houses in London. The Kremlin’s reaction to the book eventually caused Litvinenko to flee to Britain.
Another prominent Russian, business mogul Boris Berezovsky, also fled to Britain, and Russia has been seeking his extradition. Britain has refused, further heightening what appears to be new Cold War tensions.
The print of the documentary that premiered in Cannes wasn’t a final version, partly because a storm in Russia delayed its transport, a spokesman said shortly before the screening.
Litvinenko’s widow, Marina, showed up in Cannes to support the premiere of “Rebellion.”
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