Do you recognize the gentleman in the foreground?

Unless you are an avid follower of Russian politics, you may not. He’s Sergei Mironov, a high-ranking figure in the Kremlin’s power structure. He’s the leader of the “Russia of Justice” political party (a sham entity subservient to the Kremlin) and the Chairman of the Federation Council, equivalent to being the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. If, that is, George Bush personally selected all the members.

Even if you are not an aficionado of Russian politics, you likely do recognize the gentleman in the background, with the red square around his head and torso. Maybe he’s a bit too small to really tell. Here he is closer up:

Yes, that’s right, it’s Alexander Litvinenko, with pair of nasty holes his face from being used as target practice, as reported a few days ago by a Polish newspaper called Dziennik. Then the AP picked up the story and fleshed it out. Here it is:

A private facility that trains security personnel used pictures of poisoned Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko’s face for target practice during a competition for special forces, the center’s chief said on Tuesday. In video circulating the Internet, trainees dressed in camouflage maneuver between slats in a wall, leap through an obstacle course, then tumble to a semi-sitting position with outstretched arms aiming their weapons at a black-and-white target showing Alexander Litvinenko’s face. Several black holes appear on the target near the ex-spy’s nose before the video goes black. Click here to watch video of trainees firing at the Litvinenko target.
Sergei Lysuk, Vityaz Center’s chief, said the video is from 2002 and shows military recruits. He said he was unaware the target depicted Litvinenko, who died of radiation poisoning after eating at a sushi restaurant. The former spy was an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and from his deathbed accused the leader of pulling the strings in a plot to kill him. “The fact that it was Litvinenko, we only found out later from the press,” Lysyuk said. “We did not shoot at Litvinenko; we shot at a target.”

Use of the target at the center, which held a competition for Russian special forces, became known this week after Russian media published photographs of Sergei Mironov, head of the Russian parliament’s upper house, visiting the center in early November Äsix days after Litvinenko was poisonedÅ. His visit, to present awards in a competition for Interior Ministry special forces, came about a week after Litvinenko fell ill; one photo shows the Litvinenko target in the background behind Mironov.

Lysyuk insisted his company does not normally hold such contests and was granting a favor to former Interior Ministry colleagues, whose own training ground was being repaired. Litvinenko, once an agent in the Federal Security Service, the Soviet KGB’s main successor, fled to Britain and was granted asylum after accusing his superiors of ordering him to kill Boris Berezovsky, a Russian tycoon and one-time Kremlin insider who also has been granted British citizenship.

Dmitry Peskov, a senior Kremlin spokesman, said using a person’s face as a shooting range “was ethically incorrect,” but stressed it was that company’s responsibility and insisted government troops were not involved in the exercises. “There is no talk of such shooting ranges being used by Russian special forces or by the Vityaz unit,” Peskov told AP in a telephone interview. “This ÄcompanyÅ has no relation to the elite Vityaz troops.”

Talk about killing two birds with one stone! At one stroke, we see obliterated absurd Russophile canard that Litvinenko was “nobody” to the Kremlin AND the true nature of the government officials who support “President” Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin scrambled to deny that the shooters were actual FSB agents and screeched about a russophobic foreign conspiracy, but it can’t deny that Russia’s highest-ranking legislative officer was standing there next to those targets days after Litvinenko was poisoned and didn’t say a word of protest. And it’s undisputed that the security forces use the center. Kommersant reported: “Mr. Lyusyuk also acknowledged that bodyguards and private security forces are not the only visitors to the center: real Vityaz troops (the 1st special-task regiment of the 1st independent division of the Moscow region troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs ???????? the so-called “Maroon Berets”) are also known to stop by.” It’s obvious that a figure of Mironov’s stature wasn’t there to watch the activities of mere private security guard trainees at an obscure private center.

The Kremlin is stonewalling the Litvinenko investigation, refusing to extradite those that Scotland Yard may find evidence to indict, and it certainly hasn’t issued a condemnation of Mironov’s conduct. Instead, it’s issued statements about Western conspiracies against Russia, rationalizing and defending his conduct. Welcome to the neo-Soviet Union.

Kim Zigfeld publishes the Russia blog La Russophobe.