In the world of state espionage, disloyalty can be deadly. A brutal reminder of that came last week with another chapter in the story of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian state security operative who in 2000 fled Russia for Britain. The results of the public inquiry into his 2006 death , finally released Jan. 21, confirm what everyone has always strongly suspected: He was almost certainly assassinated by the Russian government , probably with a blessing for the operation by President Vladimir Putin himself. That the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) would murder a dissident on foreign soil is anything but surprising. In a way, it's a confirmation of what Litvinenko himself criticized about the agency that succeeded the KGB. After he defected, Litvinenko became a vocal opponent of the Russian government.