Enemies of the state: Russia tracked Russian émigrés in the U.S.

But Russian intelligence operatives have also killed Russians who were not outspoken critics of the regime, leading Russia experts to speculate that Putin has adopted a milder version of Stalin’s tactics of random killings in order to instill a generalized sense of fear and insecurity in the Russian elite.

For example, Alex Oronov, 69, a Ukranian-born millionaire businessman with ties to both Donald Trump and the Russian business elite, has died on 2 March 2017 in unexplained circumstances. Oronov, a naturalized American citizen, ran a large agricultural business in his native Ukraine. Oronov also had family ties to Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer: Cohen’s brother, Bryan, was Oronov’s partner in an ethanol business in Ukraine (see “Ukrainian businessman with links to Trump, Russia dies in mysterious circumstances,” HSNW, 6 March 2017).

Oronov’s death was one of a series of mysterious deaths which have visited senior Russian businesspeople and diplomats in late 2016 and early 2017. The short list would include:

— Vitaly Churkin, 64, Russia’s permanent ambassador to the UN, died in February 2017 in New York after suddenly becoming ill on his way to work the day before his 65th birthday. It was reported he had suffered a heart attack, but an autopsy proved inconclusive.

— Andrei Malanin, 55, the Russian consul in Athens, was found dead in January 2017 on the floor of his apartment in Greece. Greek police said there was no evidence of a break-in and he was believed to have died of natural causes.

— Alexander Kadakin, 67, Russia’s ambassador to India, was reported to have died of heart failure in January 2017 after a “brief illness.”

— Sergei Krivov, 63, a senior Russian diplomat, was found on 8 November 2016, U.S. Election Day, unconscious on the grounds outside his office at the Russian consulate in New York. He suffered severe – and unexplained — head injuries. Russian sources initially said he had fallen to his death following a heart attack, but a report from medical examiners was inconclusive.

— Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, was killed on 19 December 2016 in Ankara by a policeman at a photography exhibition.

— Peter Polshikov, a senior officials at the Russian foreign ministry, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment on the same day (19 December 2016).

— Oleg Erovinkin, the former chief of the KGB, who is said to have provided former British MI6 operative Christopher Steele with material for a dossier on Donald Trump, was found dead in the back of his car on 26 December 2016. Russian officials claimed he had died of a heart attack.