Vladimir Putin's Art of Assassination
Here is how most of Vladimir Putin's vocal critics have died mysteriously.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia on February 22, 2023. Photo by Anadolu Images.
P
olitical assassination is the oldest trick in the book for getting rid of determined opponents. Assassination methods range from poisoning to shooting, and even a world war broke out following a political assassination: World War I erupted when Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Despite the risks involved, political assassinations continue to occur across the world today.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, died in a plane crash on August 23, 2023. Two months before his death, Prigozhin, also known as “Putin’s chef” due to his involvement in restaurants and catering services that served the Kremlin, launched a munity against the Russian government. He released a video and a series of audio recordings on Telegram claiming that the Russian military leadership was “evil” and needed to be stopped. He called for the dismissal of the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
On June 24, Putin made a televised speech in which he claimed that Prigozhin had committed an act of treason and betrayal, and he promised to crush what he called an “armed mutiny.” Just as the situation in Russia was escalating, particularly with Wagner’s forces seizing the city of Rostov-on-Don, Prigozhin ordered his mercenaries to halt their advance on Moscow to avoid “shedding Russia’s blood.” He also agreed to live in exile in Belarus, a result of Belarusian mediation.
However, he never got that far and was found dead in a plane crash north of Moscow, leaving the future of his mercenary group unclear. Many have accused Putin of being responsible for Prigozhin’s death, given his reputation for using assassination to eliminate his opponents. Not surprisingly, the Kremlin has denied any deliberate involvement in the Wagner boss’s death.
Putin’s reputation for assassinating his rivals
The Roman emperor Domitian was famously paranoid about being assassinated. He used to joke: “It’s a terrible thing to be an emperor, because everyone thinks your paranoia about being assassinated is groundless – until you’re actually assassinated.” In fact, he was proven correct, when he was assassinated.
Putin also fears being assassinated or overthrown by his opponents. Earlier this year, there was a drone attack on the Kremlin, and unsurprisingly, Putin claimed it was an attempt on his life. In the words of Simon Sebag-Montefiore, best-selling author of Jerusalem and the Romanovs, Putin has “every reason to fear assassination.”
It is not surprising that many critics of Putin and his policies have been murdered, and many speculate that the Kremlin is behind these murders because of two common denominators among the victims: public criticism of Putin and their sudden deaths. The latest is Prigozhin, who had rebelled against Putin two months before his death. He joins a list of victims who are believed to have been murdered by Putin in order to be silenced.
A timeline of the deaths of Putin’s critics
Yuri Shchekochikhin, 2003
Yuri Shchekochikhin was an investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta (NG) who wrote about the corruption and crimes of the former Soviet Union. He was most known for his investigation on the cases of the “1999 Russian apartment bombings” and the “Three Whales Corruption Scandal.” The alleged accusations behind the corruption in both cases were directed at the officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
The “Three Whales Corruption Scandal” was under Putin’s personal control. When Shchekochikhin wanted to travel to the U.S. to discuss his findings with the FBI, he was suddenly diagnosed with a mysterious illness that eventually killed him on July 3, 2003. His relatives were denied access to his medical records, which remain classified by Russian authorities.
Sergei Yushenkov, 2003
Sergei Yushenkov was a liberal Russian politician who supported reform in the Russian army and was a strong critic of the First and Second Chechen Wars. He argued that the operations of the Russian army in Chechnya were illegal. He officially formed his political party, Liberal Russia, on October 22, 2002.
Yushenkov was assassinated on April 17, 2003, only hours after he registered his political party to participate in the December 2003 parliamentary elections.
Anna Politkovskaya, 2006
Anna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist for NG who advocated for human rights in Russia. She reported on political and social events in Russia, especially the Second Chechen War. She was a critic of the Russian regime, and as a result of her writings, was arrested by the Russian military forces in Chechnya.
In 2004, she was poisoned while flying from Moscow to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, which forced her to fly back to Moscow for medical treatment. She is also known for her 2004 book Putin’s Russia, which offered a description of Russia from her perspective for Western readers. She was murdered in the elevator of her apartment building on October 7, 2006. In June 2014, five men were sent to prison for her murder, but it remains unclear who ordered or paid for the hit.
Alexander Litvinenko, 2006
Alexander Litvinenko was a British-naturalized Russian defector, who was a former FSB officer in charge of tackling organized crime. He was a prominent critic of Putin and was the first to coin the term “mafia state” to describe Russia under Putin’s regime. He fled to London and became a journalist and consultant for the British intelligence services.
Litvinenko wrote two books, Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within and Lubyanka Criminal Group, in which he accused the Russian secret services of orchestrating the 1999 Russian apartment bombings and other acts of terrorism on Putin’s orders.
He also accused Putin of ordering the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya. On November 1, 2006, a month after the death of Politkovskaya, Litvinenko was hospitalized after being poisoned by polonium-210. He died from the poisoning on November 23.
Andrey Lugovoy, a former member of the Russian Federal Protective Services (FSO), and Dmitry Kovtun, a former KGB agent, were the main suspects in the British investigation of Litvinenko’s death. The two suspects were never captured. In 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Russian regime was behind his assassination in the Carter v. Russia case and ordered Russia to pay 100,000 euros in damages.
Natalia Estemirova, 2009
Natalia Estemirova was a human rights activist and board member of the human rights organization Memorial. She was known for her criticism of the Second Chechen War. Being a widow of a Chechen policeman, she gathered evidence on human rights violations since the beginning of the Second Chechen War.
Estemirova produced thirteen short documentaries about victims who suffered at the hands of Russian law enforcement. On July 15, 2009, she was abducted from her home in Grozny, Chechnya at approximately 8:30 a.m. Eyewitnesses reported that she was pushed into a car while screaming that she was being kidnapped. The Russian authorities later announced that they found her body, along with her belongings, in a wooded area at 4:30 p.m. Memorial claimed that “state terror” was behind her assassination.
Sergei Magnitsky, 2009
Sergei Magnitsky was a tax advisor who was responsible for exposing the Russian regime’s corruption and misconduct against Hermitage Capital Management. He claimed that the Russian government conducted large-scale theft against the company, which was sanctioned and carried out by Russian officials.
He was arrested in 2008 and died in prison before the expiration of the one-year term for which he could legally be held without trial. He became the first person in Russia to face a posthumous trial.
Stanislav Markelov & Anastasia Baburova, 2009
Stanislav Markelov was a Russian human rights lawyer. He was the attorney for Elza Kungaeva’s family, a Chechen woman who was kidnapped and murdered by Russian colonel Yuri Budanov. Budanov was released from prison on January 15, 2009.
On January 19, 2009, Markelov was assassinated while leaving a news conference in Moscow, which was less than 800 meters from the Kremlin. Anastasia Baburova, a journalist for NG who tried to rescue Markelov, was also shot and killed in the attack.
Boris Berezovsky, 2013
Boris Berezovsky was a Russian business oligarch who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s. It’s believed that Berezovsky was instrumental in Putin’s rise to power but that since he couldn’t exert any influence under the new leadership, he fell out with Putin. This eventually led to his self-exile to the United Kingdom, where he promised to bring Putin down.
Berezovsky accused the Kremlin of ordering the killing of Alexander Litvinenko. He was assassinated in the UK inside his bathroom, which was locked. A noose was found around his neck, leading to speculation about death by suicide; however, the cause of his death remains a mystery.
Boris Nemtsov, 2015
Boris Nemtsov was a Russian liberal politician and an outspoken critic of Putin. He held many official positions under the USSR, and was involved in the economic reforms of Russia after the collapse of the USSR. He was seen as a possible candidate for Russian president until Putin assumed the position in 2000.
Nemtsov criticized Putin’s government for being authoritarian and undemocratic, and was also vocal against the involvement of the Russian military in Ukraine. Before his death, he stated that he feared for his life and that Putin would kill him. Two weeks later, on February 27, 2015, Nemtsov was shot several times in the back while crossing the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge in Moscow. He died on the spot. The night after his assassination, the police confiscated his papers and computer hard drives from his apartment.
Denis Voronenkov, 2017
Denis Voronenkov was a Russian politician who, after joining the Communist Party, served as a member of the State Duma from 2011 to 2016. He lost his seat to Vladimir Panov in the 2016 legislative elections. Following this incident, he renounced his Russian citizenship and fled to Ukraine with his wife. There, he became an outspoken critic of Putin and his foreign policy.
Voronenkov was shot dead in Kyiv by Pavel Parshov, a Ukrainian national. Ukrainian prosecutors believe the FSB hired Parshov to assassinate him, while Petro Poroshenko, the former Ukrainian president, believes the assassination was orchestrated by the Russian government.
Most of Putin’s vocal critics have died in mysterious ways. While the Kremlin claims it has had nothing to do with their deaths, many believe that killing his critics is Putin’s way of silencing them for good. Yevgeny Prigozhin appears to be the latest victim of this strategy.
