This documentary report examines how a former Soviet intelligence officer came to die in London, and what his death revealed about the long reach of Russian security services after the Cold War. It traces the shadowy world of defectors, double agents and exiles, where old loyalties, state secrets and personal betrayals continued to carry deadly consequences long after the Soviet Union itself had disappeared. London, home to many Russian exiles, becomes the setting for a story that is part espionage history and part murder investigation.
The film looks at the methods associated with such killings, from poison to other covert techniques designed to leave little trace, and at the difficulties investigators face when a state may be involved. It also sets the case in the broader history of the KGB and its successor organisations, showing how intelligence services used assassination, intimidation and disinformation as instruments of power, and how those practices shaped relations between Russia and the West.
For readers interested in socialism’s history and present, the story matters because it connects the Soviet past with today’s Russia. It raises questions about continuity and change after 1991, about accountability for state violence, and about how democracies respond when political murder reaches their own cities. The video below presents the full account.