ITV is set to air a new drama series on Thursday (December 15) detailing the assassination of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. The former KGB agent was murdered in London in 2006 after being unwittingly poisoned with a dose of the radioactive substance polonium-210.
Litvinenko had claimed political asylum in the UK in 2000 after publicly criticising Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime. After a lengthy investigation, it was ruled Russia was directly responsible for Litvinenko’s murder, with the poisoning likely ordered by Putin himself.
The European Court of Human Rights eventually found beyond reasonable doubt that KGB officers Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi poisoned the former Russian agent with the toxic substance which caused his death. The highly-anticipated ITVX drama Litvinenko explores the events and aftermath of the now-infamous murder up to present day, and was produced with direct involvement from Alexander’s surviving wife, Marina.
READ MORE: How did Alexander Litvinenko die? The shocking true story behind the ITV drama
Speaking to The Telegraph in 2017, Marina explained how the couple first met in June 1993, when a friend brought Alexander to her Moscow apartment. She was a professional ballroom dancer at the time, while Alexander was an officer for the FSB – Russia’s main security agency and successor to the KGB.
Marina was in her early-thirties when she followed her husband into exile in the UK, moving with their six-year-old son, Anatoly. Played by Russian-born actress Margarita Levieva, the four-part series dramatises Marina’s long fight for justice.
Litvinenko writer Richard Kerbaj had previously documented the family’s hard-fought legal battle with the British government. Pushing for an official public inquiry into Alexander’s murder – which eventually took place in 2015 – Marina says she has fought hard to “keep his voice alive”.
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After her husband’s death, Marina learned English and became a campaigner determined to fight for justice and uncover the truth of his murder. 16 years later, she remains a strong critic of the Russian president and continues her battle on behalf of Alexander.
Speaking of his story being transformed into an ITV drama, Marina, now 60, she told the PA news agency: “I wasn’t sure it was gonna happen. But it happened.”
Marina still lives in London to this day, the Telegraph reported. She shares a flat in the west of the city with her son, now 28.
Marina spent a decade calling for a public inquiry following her husband’s death, which eventually went ahead in January 2015 and concluded he had been the victim of an FSB assassination. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph in April 2022, Marina said her biggest ambition in life is “to live longer than Putin, and one day see him tried for war crimes and for the murder of my husband”.
Since Alexander’s death, Marina has written several books, including Death of a Dissident and Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File. She has also taken part in or aided in the production of several documentaries, including Channel 4’s Hunting the KGB Killers in 2017.
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