[Liberty1970]

Former agent Litvinenko was far from a saint himself, however, and British authorities have not ruled out completely the fact that the agent may have committed suicide in this bizarre manner just to bring increased attention and hostility down upon the Kremlin.

Uh, no. One does not just go down to the corner drug store to buy a bottle of Po-210.

[GOP_1900AD]

And to boot, even if one gets it, one does not just carry it in a vial, pour it on some guy's food, and hope it works. One would have to design a simple but somewhat difficult to manufacture delivery system, for example, a microcaplet with an engineered dose. I picture something like the "SHMERSH" version of "Q" - and as much as that alludes to a fanciful thing, nonetheless, some sort of lab, perhaps like one set up by the SVR, would have been needed.