Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, two Russians identified as prime suspects by British police, are likely to have carried out the poisoning on the instructions of the Russian security services, the inquiry reported. Although Prime Minister David Cameron called it a "state-sponsored action", his government did not announce sanctions in response, instead summoning Moscow's ambassador to London for talks lasting less than an hour.
Russia was sharply dismissive of the conclusions. "Maybe this is a joke," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "More likely it can be attributed to fine British humour - the fact that an open public inquiry is based on the classified data of special services, unnamed special services."
At the High Court in London, there were cries of "Yes!" as the main findings were read out. Litvinenko's wife Marina, dressed in black and accompanied by her 21-year-old son Anatoly, embraced supporters afterwards. She has spent years pushing for a public inquiry and had urged sanctions and a travel ban on Putin. "I'm very pleased that the words my husband spoke on his deathbed when he accused Mr Putin of his murder have been proved true in an English court," she said. She told AFP: "I can't say it is what I hoped for but I really appreciate it." Judge Robert Owen, the inquiry's chairman, said he was "sure" that Lugovoi and Kovtun placed polonium-210 in a teapot at the Millennium Hotel's Pine Bar, where they met Litvinenko on November 1, 2006.