Smash hit

“Unlike during communist times, the anti-western sentiment here is at grass-roots levels now. It’s more dangerous – it’s led to nationalism, chauvinism and even to neofascist views, because the West miscalculated in its attitude to Russia. After communism collapsed, the feeling was one of gleeful rubbing of hands. Many Russians felt that, ‘Look, we’ve got rid of this terrible system. We’ve taken the brunt of this. Greet us with open arms.’ But quite the opposite took place.”

Andrei Konstantinovich Lugovoi was born into a patriotic military family. His grandfather was awarded a Soviet medal for his part in the 1945 battle for Berlin. His father served in the military and his brother was an officer on a nuclear submarine. His mother was a school teacher.

“Back in Moscow I joined the military college,” recalled Lugovoi, as he chopped wood during the hunting trip. Very much the leader of his group of old friends from the military, Lugovoi later cooked dinner on an open fire, sang and played the guitar. Our vodka supply of 15 bottles among 8 ran out in 24 hours. “An officer’s son joined the military; it was taken for granted,” he went on. “Just as I was expected to join the Communist party, which I did at 18.”

Aged only 20, he was selected to join the KGB and tasked with the personal security of the country’s leadership. “In the West you think everyone here lived in fear of the KGB,” said Lugovoi as he stirred a fish soup, while Kovtun, also the son of a military officer, sipped wine, dressed in camouflage and Prada boots. “Instead, most had huge respect for KGB officers because only the best were chosen. I was very proud.

I was never a fervent believer in communism but the Soviet system had predictability.”

That security ended with the Soviet Union’s collapse. Millions lost their life’s savings to hyperinflation. Crime and corruption became rampant. A few ruthless and well-connected businessmen turned fabulously rich while millions struggled to survive. “My father took the collapse very badly,” recalled Lugovoi. “Unlike myself, he was very ideological and we used to argue about the changes.”

Soon Lugovoi too became disillusioned. Travelling to the United States for the first time in 1992 as a bodyguard to Yegor Gaidar, the former liberal prime minister, accompanying Yeltsin on a US-Russia summit, he and his KGB colleagues exchanged Soviet cigarettes for Marlboros with the US agents guarding George Bush Sr. “One packet of US Marlboros was the equivalent of a fifth of my monthly salary,” recalled Lugovoi. “I had three children by then,” – he now has four – “and was expected to care for them on the equivalent of five packets of US cigarettes. That’s how impoverished the army elites and ordinary Russians had become.”

The KGB, which Yeltsin renamed the Federal Security Service (FSB) and broke up into separate agencies to reduce its power, suffered a huge brain drain. Russia’s secret policemen resigned in droves to work in the lucrative private sector. At a time when contract killings became the favoured method of settling disputes, security for Russia’s early tycoons was imperative. As their wealth and power grew, so did their private armies of former KGB officers. They offered protection, connections and, crucially, sensitive information.

The murkier Russian business grew, the more shadowy their work. Gathering kompromat – dirt – on rivals, industrial espionage, eavesdropping, intimidation and blackmail were, and to some extent still are, commonplace.

As a bodyguard to the Russian prime minister, Lugovoi was well placed to find a new employer. Lobbying and seeking favours, politicians and businessmen paid Gaidar visits. Lugovoi met them as they paced in the waiting room. That is how he met Boris Berezovsky in 1993. Then Russia’s most controversial oligarch, with the best Kremlin contacts, Berezovsky later fell out with Putin and is now wanted by the Russians on charges of embezzlement. To the Kremlin’s fury he was granted political asylum in Britain.

The right opportunity came in 1996 when Lugovoi resigned to become head of security at ORT, a national television channel controlled by Berezovsky. His monthly salary shot from £250 to £2,500, plus a chauffeur-driven car.

He was taken under the wing of Badri Patarkatsishvili, Berezovsky’s business partner.

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