MOSCOW, December 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's domestic security service said it will not comment on British media reports of its alleged involvement in the killing of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko.
"We do not see any sense in commenting on unofficial media reports with reference to unnamed sources in the British special services," a spokesman for Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said Tuesday.
Earlier, a source in the British secret services told The Times that only FSB agents have access to sufficient amounts of polonium 210, allegedly used to kill the Russian defector.
A security source also told The Times: "We know how the FSB operates abroad and, based on the circumstances behind the death of Mr Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect."
Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin's administration and a close associate of exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, died in a London hospital November 23. His body was found to contain a lethal dose of polonium 210, a radioactive isotope.
Traces of polonium 210 were also found in a dozen sites in London and on British Airways aircraft flying the London-Moscow route.
Following Litvinenko's death, Western media circulated a message purporting to be his deathbed note, in which he accused President Putin of orchestrating his death.
Moscow has repeatedly denied the accusations, also casting doubt over the authenticity of the note. And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday the scandal fanned by the media in the U.K. has damaged Russian-British relations.
