Poisoned by Polonium

New America Media, , Q&A//Andrei Nekrasov & Mary Ambrose , Posted: Apr 04, 2008

Editor's Note: 'Who did it?' asked the filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov the exiled Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko died of polonium poisoning in a London hospital in November 2006. That question raises other questions about who is running Russia and is explored in Nekrasov’s film “Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File,” which opens at the Roxy theater in San Francisco today. Nekrasov spoke with NAM Managing Editor Mary Ambrose.


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NAM: Has there been any official Russian reaction to your movie?

Nekrasov: No, not official, but the reporters who saw it in Cannes, and Russian reporters love going to Cannes Film Festival, they wrote about the movie and there was some TV reports. Most of them were negative and slightly unfair, not really discussing the subject and what Alexander Litvinenko says in the movie, but just generally saying because he's an enemy and a traitor, and I wonderwhy they decided he is, I'm somehow also not a good guy.

NAM: He says in the movie "I do this for my country, I do this because I care about my country", it's obvious he's a patriot. Do you think they did this because they feel that's the only position they can take?

Nekrasov: Yes, you know, the media are not free in Russia these days. But the control is not direct. It's a kind of self-censorship. The people kind of guess what the leadership wants them to write and to say, because it's simply a nice job to be a reporter of a major paper.

These days, it's not like the old Communist days, these days they are very well paid, Russia is booming in Moscow, St. Petersburg. It's partly economic; it's nice to be close to power these days in Russia.

NAM:They have more freedom, but they are internally holding the Party line, and if there is anything that's a cautionary tale, it is the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.

Nekrasov: Yes, some reporters are in real danger, who have to report on Chechnya, on current corruption.She consciously took the risk, because she was a very brave, very principled journalist. But, you know, most people aren't like her.

NAM: In your movie you're taking a picture of Russian political society, but there's also the comment you make about there being two ideologies in Russia, communist and criminal.

Nekrasov: Yes.

NAM: There are rich, rich people you describe as mostly criminals, and there's this Communist structure, which really hasn't changed.

Nekrasov: Well it's not called communist these days. Officially, it's capitalism in Russia, but it's a very strange capitalism, it's the old communists who overnight decided to legalize the property, to turn the communist property which formerly belonged to everybody, to basically grab it and appropriate it and own it. That is what Litvinenko was condemning. He basically said the Russian state
operates like Mafia. That has nothing to do with real freedom of enterprise and democracy.

NAM: There's a very poignant moment where he says, the worst thing he thinks he did was not to expose all of these agents in what is called the KSB (formerly KGB), but to expose how they are making money, how they are looting the country.

Nekrasov: Exactly. The press in Britain, for example, portrayed Litvinenko as a spy out of a James Bond movie, but in fact he was an honest cop, fighting organized crime, the mafia. The only secret he knew, he said in the movie, is how corrupt his bosses, at this new KGB, and the government officials are. This is the root cause of Russia's problems, this kind of mega-corruption, the immorality of the elite who just siphon this extraordinary Russian wealth and appropriate, really steal it from the people.

NAM: Do you feel antagonism, anger or despair that there doesn't seem to be much pressure from America to examine what’s happening in Russia.

Nekrasov: Yes, well unfortunately under the Bush administration, the human rights and the political situation, which is not at all good, was not a priority. Partly, because Putin promised Bush to be an ally in the war on terror, which I personally don't think is entirely sincere. Litvinenko actually was implying that Russia is benefiting from the high oil price and the trouble with Iraq.

It's not just a moral issue; obviously as a Russian I would like the United States to pay more attention to very grave problems with thehuman rights in Russia and lack of democracy. You know, if you defenddemocracy in one part of the world you should be consistent, you can't deal with every problem in the world, but you have to at least be honest and say there is no democracy in Russia.

There are also pragmatic aspects; the Russian elite is not very honest with the west. They are actually quite anti-west. They say one thing in the west and then they say different thing for internal consumption. What they say inside Russia is very anti-western, they say the west is the enemy. This caters to this nationalistic, chauvinistic part of the population.

NAM: I was shocked by Boris Berezovsky, (the Russian billionaire who now lives in London and owns a soccer team); he's talking about how the Russian people have a slave mentality, because they don't have the internal controls necessary for democracy. He said when the external controls are lifted then everybody just sort of goes mad; this seemed extremely patronizing to me.

Nekrasov: It is, it is. But you know Berezovsky is one of those tycoons that made a huge fortune in the 90s. He and the other one who ended up in prison, (Mikhail) Khodorkovsky, were at least principled enough to dissociate themselves from these undemocratic tendencies under Putin. Therefore Berezovsky's now in London; Khodorkovsky's in prison.

There are many more of those tycoons, we call them oligarchs, around Putin, who are completely loyal and obedient, therefore we don't hear about them, they are just happy they are in Moscow and the number of billionaires is growing by the minute, while the majority of the population is growing poorer and poorer.

NAM: Alan Cowell of the New York Times has a biography of Litvinenko coming out, and Johnny Depp has said he's going to produce a film about him. Alexander Litvinenko was a man you knew, you considered him a friend, you did this movie first, how does it feel to have his story made into a –presumably- much more glamorous kind of film?

Nekrasov: It's such a complicated story, and you see in the film, you have to explain many more things outside the life of this specific individual, who happened to be my friend. I just hope it won't be too simplistic, because even if you make it favorable to Litvinenko and make it too simplistic, then you'll find a lot of people who will be saying, "you glamorized him".

Sacha Litvinenko, we called him Sacha, wasn't an angel. He went through war in Chechnya, and he went through very hard experiences, but what's very valuable is that he made a moral choice. He said enough is enough. When he was ordered by his superiors to kill people, he said no. I will not obey a criminal order.

From then on, his rebellion and quest for truth started. This is not an easy story to tell. I just wish them luck.

NAM: Keeping a hero to human proportions is difficult.

Nekrasov: Yes, I think Litvinenko was a hero, not an ideal, artificial hero, and to portray a really heroic situation realistically, it's very hard because you have to make it plausible, believable, and you have to show the tragedy. The poor guy’s death was a slow execution.

It took him three painful weeks to die from this terrible Polonium 210. He was very conscious of what's happening and saw all this publicity starting around him and he told me in the hospital, “Well, if this is the price to be believed you'd been telling the truth, then let it be so, because at least I'm not dying in vain.”

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