It used to be referred to as ”wet affairs” - mokryye dela – ”wet operations”. In the 1930s It became the Russian slang for Spetsburo Thirteen, directing operations that involved bloodshed. It has been traced back to the 1890s, when it described robberies that resulted in murder. Decades later, to ”get wet” was the dreaded, inevitable fate of traitors, hunted down by the special bureau.
Observers have said that „wet works”, as a standard operational tool had been more or less abandonded for decades. They indicate that it was resurrected in 1999 after Vladimir Putin ascended to power.
Last winter a British court announced that Russian operatives murdered Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. This was the conclusion of the massive report containing a multi-year investigation. It stated that Kremlin decision-makers at the highest level approved the killing. The decision would presumably include Putin. The report was a sesnsational international story especially the accusation that top-level Russian offcialdom was complicit in the crime committed by poisoning. Litvinenko’s death was caused by highly radioactive polonium-210, that British investigators said originated from a Russian reactor.
Litvinenko, a former KGB and FSB oficer had defected and was collaborating with British intelligence. On more than one occasion Putin, whose career previously included FSB service in East Germany, had often insisted that there are no ’former’ intelligence officers. Of critical concern to the Kremlin was not just the fact that Litvinenko was informing British intelligence of details regarding Russia’s secret services but that he was exposing to the West the high-level corruption in Moscow, possible FSB ties to Al Quaeda, items sensitive and embarrassing to Russia’s leadership. Andrei Luguvoy’s direct involvement in the killing confirms the Kremlin’s complicity and culpability behind the assasination. (Pikemalt Eesti Elu 7. okt. paberlehest0