David Tennant stars as Alexander Litvinenko in ITV's new four-part drama, which tells the true story of the former Russian intelligence officer whose death from polonium-210 poisoning in 2006 triggered one of the most complex murder investigations ever undertaken by the Metropolitan Police. The series, which first aired on ITVX in December, begins its ITV broadcast on Monday night.
Litvinenko, a former officer with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and the KGB, fled to the UK in 2000 and became an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. He was granted British citizenship and worked for the British secret service, and at the time of his death was investigating links between the Russian mafia and Spain. He had been due to fly to Spain with former KGB officer Andrey Lugovoi, but never made the plane.
On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko met Lugovoi and another former agent, Dmitry Kovtun, for tea at a central London hotel. He fell ill soon afterwards and was admitted to hospital three days later under the pseudonym Edwin Redwald Carter. While in hospital, he told detectives he believed he had been poisoned on the orders of Vladimir Putin. He died on 23 November, and tests later revealed he had ingested a lethal dose of polonium-210.
The Crown Prosecution Service subsequently called for Lugovoi's extradition to face murder charges, but Russia refused, citing a constitutional ban. Lugovoi denied any involvement, telling The Guardian: "I consider this decision to be political, I did not kill Litvinenko." An inquiry later found that Lugovoi and Kovtun had carried out the poisoning, and in 2021 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible. Both men have always denied the claims.
Litvinenko's widow, Marina, has campaigned tirelessly for the truth. She still lives in London with their son, Anatoly, and has said her biggest ambition is "to live longer than Putin, and one day see him tried for war crimes and for the murder of my husband". Marina, who has written several books including The Death of a Dissident, attended a screening of the ITV drama last year and said: "It's so important to keep his voice alive." In February, she joined an anti-Putin protest outside the Russian embassy, calling for a Ukrainian victory in the ongoing war.
