THE RUSSIA CONNECTION Putin’s Victims: A Long List Getting Longer
Vladimir Putin’s intelligence operatives have killed many critics of the regime, both in Russia and abroad — among them opposition politicians, journalists, academics, artists, former spies, oligarchs, and businesspeople. Russian intelligence operatives, however, 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 among members of the Russian elite. The article offers a list of 175 dead Russians — 30 businesspeople; 23 politicians, diplomats, academics, and senior military officers; and 122 journalists — who were killed, or who died under mysterious, often exceedingly implausible, circumstances, since Putin came to power.
Vladimir Putin’s intelligence operatives have killed many domestic critics of Putin – opposition politicians, journalists, academics, artists, former spies, oligarchs, and businesspeople.
Russian intelligence operatives, however, 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).
I. Businesspeople, Politicians, Diplomats, Academics, and Former Spies
Boris Nemtsov, 2015. In the 1990s, Nemtsov was one of the leaders of post-Soviet Russia’s “young reformers.” He became deputy prime minister and was, for a while, seen as possible presidential material — but it was Vladimir Putin who succeeded Boris Yeltsin in 2000. Nemtsov initially supported the choice, but he grew increasingly critical, and was pushed to the margins of Russian political life. In February 2015, military involvement in Ukraine, Nemtsov was shot four times in the back by an unknown assailant within view of the Kremlin. Putin took “personal control” of the investigation into Nemtsov’s murder, but the killer remains at large.
Boris Berezovsky, 2013. A self-styled tycoon who was a member of Yeltsin’s inner circle in the late 1990s, Berezovsky was instrumental in Putin’s rise to power (including a media campaign that smeared Boris Nemtsov, who was competing with Putin to succeed Yeltsin). But Berezovsky soon fell out with Putin, and left Russia for a comfortable self-exile in the United Kingdom. The distance from Russia emboldened him, and he declared that he would devote his and his considerable wealth to bring down Putin.
