Dmitry Kovtun

Dmitry Vladimirovich Kovtun (; 25 September 1965 – 4 June 2022) was a Russian businessman and KGB agent who was suspected to have murdered the former Russian spy and later British citizen Alexander Litvinenko in London, England. In 2021 the European Court of Human Rights found beyond reasonable doubt that Andrey Lugovoy and Kovtun had killed Litvinenko.

Early life and education Dmitry Vladimirovich Kovtun was born on 25 September 1965, into a military family in Moscow on 25 September 1965.

Alexander Litvinenko radiation investigation

Radiation investigation Kovtun met ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko in London on several occasions, first in mid-October and later only hours before Litvinenko fell ill on 1 November. On 9 December 2006, German police report finding traces of radiation at Hamburg flat used by Kovtun. According to German investigators, the polonium traces were found on a couch where Kovtun is believed to have slept at his ex-wife's apartment in Hamburg (Altona-Ottensen) the night before he headed to London for a meeting with Litvinenko and according to British investigators, polonium traces were found on the airplanes in which Kovtun traveled between Moscow and London. Polonium traces were also found in Kovtun's car in Hamburg.

Both Russian and British investigators interviewed Kovtun. German detectives investigated Kovtun's suspected participation in plutonium smuggling into Germany. Kovtun said that he had only one explanation for the presence of polonium: "It is that I brought it back from London, where I met Alexander Litvinenko on October 16, 17 and 18."

In March 2015, Kovtun appeared on BBC News at Ten offering to give evidence, from Russia by video-link, to the enquiry into Litvinenko's death. He said he had "heard a lot of statements which are easy to refute" and by participating he could "get access to the documents – including the secret material – so I can make my own conclusions".

In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg found beyond reasonable doubt that Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun killed Litvinenko.

Sanctions On 9 January 2017, under the Magnitsky Act, the United States Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control updated its Specially Designated Nationals List and blacklisted Aleksandr I. Bastrykin, Andrei K. Lugovoi, Dmitri V. Kovtun, Stanislav Gordievsky, and Gennady Plaksin, which froze any of their assets held by American financial institutions or transactions with those institutions and banned their travelling to the United States.

Death Kovtun died at a Moscow hospital on 4 June 2022, aged 56, due to complications of COVID-19.