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Exclusive Litvinenko transcript
The inaccurate accent, national stereotyping and incompetence of Agent Plopov bear all the hallmarks of American Double Agent “Intelligence”.
The transcript of the ‘recording’ is as follows:
Batski: Good Evening gentlemen, Smirnoff?
Dmitri: Certainly, comrade.
Plopov: I’ll have a cocktail. Got any Molotov?
Batski: No! We have business to discuss first!
Dmitri: Of course. Alexander Litvinenko is proving to be a real thorn in the side. How shall we deal with this troublesome turncoat?
Batski: There is only one way, he will have to be eliminated.
Dmitri: Hmmm, assassination, it will need to be a fiendishly cunning manoeuvre.
Batski: And subtle too, we don’t want to attract lot of unwanted publicity.
Dmitri: Of course comrade - it is imperative he is killed instantly! We can’t have him lying about in a hospital looking haggard - attracting a lot of sympathy and making the KGB look like heartless killers.
Batski: Absolutely! We need to kill him instantly so he can’t give statements to our enemies and have them splashed across the papers! What do you say Plopov?
Plopov: Well, I have been planning this assignment for some time...
Dmitri: How about a car-bomb?
Batski: No, too noisy. How about a Kennedy-style sniper?
Dmitri: No – look at the amount of publicity that generated!
Batski: Shoot him! It worked on Rasputin!
Dmitri: Bomb him! We could plant the device in his flat and make it look like a terrorist attack!
Plopov: Comrades please, I have the answer, we will poison him.
Dmitri: Excellent! A quick and quiet execution!
Batski: Well done Plopov, what poison do you have in mind?
Plopov: I was thinking polonium-210.
(Long silence)
Batski: Erm, isn't that Radiation…? Will that kill him swiftly?
Plopov: Weeeellllllllllllllllll, it’ll be fairly quick.
Batski: “Fairly quick”? Comrade, I’m not quite sure you have grasped the importance of this. We need to eliminate him so he can’t reveal any secrets.
Plopov: Bung it in his soup. Make it a lumpy one. It’ll fill his throat up.
Batski: Comrade, are you seriously suggesting we shut him up by serving him a particularly coagulated starter!?
Dmitri: If I can just cut in, this radiation, won’t it cause a large area to be contaminated and thus cause lots of pesky journalists to sniff about?
Plopov: No no noooooo. Well, probably not. I mean, he’s in London at the moment, shouldn’t think there’ll be much of a stink kicked up there. Lovely colour you know, this polonium. Would blend in lovely in a bowl of cream of potato and leek.
Dmitri: The colour doesn’t come into it! We need this man killed with maximum efficiency! Do you understand?
Plopov: Very cheap stuff too. I know a guy in Kazakhstan who can get a car boot full of the stuff for a few Rubles.
Dmitri: PLOPOV! Are you listening? Are you seriously suggesting we attempt to contaminate an area of London with a radioactive substance that won’t even kill the target for a week!!??
(At this point the tape goes suspiciously muffled; the sounds are suddenly replaced by lots of back-slapping and cheering, then the sounds of shots being drunk and glasses being thrown into a fireplace.)
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