The scene is an office in London. A man is given a poisoned glass of wine by an exiled Russian oligarch. When he gets out into the street, he quickly becomes unwell and vomits in the gutter. Later he meets a fellow former KGB officer in an hotel restaurant.
The sick man orders tea, while his contact is clearly shown sitting at some distance from the teapot, which he does not touch.
This is the version of the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko as told in an eight-part political thriller called Nepodsudnye (The Untouchables) shown recently on Russia's NTV.
'Jackal-traitor'
Mr Litvinenko, a former FSB agent who became a Kremlin critic, was poisoned by radioactive polonium in London in 2006. The report of the long-awaited inquiry into his death is due to be sent to UK Home Secretary Theresa May by the end of the year.
The main hero of Nepodsudnye is Andrei Voronov - in the words of critic Ksenia Larina, a "noble knight, a real Lancelot". Playing foil to him is Alexander Volkov - again in Ms Larina's words, a "jackal-traitor".
The surnames have been changed, but Volkov is clearly meant to be Mr Litvinenko, while Voronov equally clearly is Andrei Lugovoi, the man wanted in the UK over Mr Litvinenko's murder.
It is no surprise that Nepodsudnye paints such a flattering picture of Mr Lugovoi. Now a well-known MP with his own TV show, he was the serial's consultant

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