In mid-October 2006, defected Russian intelligence official Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned by drinking tea that was laced with Polonium-20, a radioactive compound. He died on November 23, 2006 as a result of this poisoning. Right before his death, Litvinenko claimed that it was Putin himself who had ordered his assassination. The European Court of Human Rights determined that two Russian intelligence officers, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, were responsible for the assassination. British authorities agreed that the Kremlin orchestrated the poisoning and that former head of the FSB, Nikolai Patrushev, had approved the assassination alongside President Putin. The Polonium was traced back to a nuclear reactor in the Urals and went through production in the Russian town of Sarov. From there, an FSB laboratory was able to create a drinkable substance containing the radioactive compound.