The return of the KGB’s “wet work”

It used to be referred to as "wet affairs" - mokryye dela – "wet operations". In the 1930s It became the Russian slang for Spetsburo Thirteen, directing operations that involved bloodshed. It has been traced back to the 1890s, when it described robberies that resulted in murder. Decades later, to "get wet" was the dreaded, inevitable fate of traitors, hunted down by the special bureau.

Observers have said that „wet works", as a standard operational tool had been more or less abandonded for decades. They indicate that it was resurrected in 1999 after Vladimir Putin ascended to power.

Last winter a British court announced that Russian operatives murdered Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. This was the conclusion of the massive report containing a multi-year investigation. It stated that Kremlin decision-makers at the highest level approved the killing. The decision would presumably include Putin. The report was a sesnsational international story especially the accusation that top-level Russian offcialdom was complicit in the crime committed by poisoning. Litvinenko's death was caused by highly radioactive polonium-210, that British investigators said originated from a Russian reactor.