Tom Parfitt recommends that we don't rush to blame Putin for the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.

"The idea that Litvinenko was a crusading dissident in the mould of Alexander Solzhenitsyn is risible. People who had never heard of him two weeks ago are now trumpeting his 'courageous, high-profile stand against the Kremlin'. The fact is that Litvinenko was a paid employee of Boris Berezovsky, the oligarch and archenemy of Putin."

Right now the identity of the person or persons responsible for killing Litvinenko remains an open question.