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Voxpress:

Russians who died after clashes with the Kremlin

2023-08-25 08:53:41Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Russians who died after clashes with the Kremlin
Vladimir Putin

One was a journalist determined to expose corruption, malfeasance and abuse – from the halls of power in Moscow to the killing fields in Chechnya.

The other was a fiery politician who led peaceful protests against Russian President Vladimir Putin, election fraud and Russia's aggression in Ukraine.

At least three others were men from different walks of life who had one thing in common: suspicions about the 1999 bombing of buildings that led to a new war in Chechnya and helped make Putin popular before Boris Yeltsin to resign and make him president.

They differed in many ways, but the list of influential Russians who have been killed or died in murky circumstances after opposing, criticizing or overstepping Putin, the Kremlin or the state is long.

And it can get longer.

If his death in an air crash on August 23 is confirmed, Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, would be added to the list.

Once a Putin ally, Prigozhin led a failed rebellion in late June that he said targeted Russia's military leaders, but it embarrassed Putin and exposed the limits of his control, making him look weak .

Sergei Yushenkov

April 17, 2003: Sergei Yushenkov, a veteran politician and leader of the anti-Kremlin Liberal Russia party, was shot dead outside his home in Moscow.

Yushenkov spearheaded efforts by liberal lawmakers to investigate possible involvement of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in a series of deadly apartment bombings in 1999. The blasts, which killed about 300 people, were blamed on Chechen militants. . They were used by Moscow as a pretext to start the Second Chechen War.

Anna Politkovskaya

October 7, 2006: One of Russia's most prominent journalists and a staunch opponent of human rights abuses in Chechnya, Politkovskaya was shot dead in her apartment.
Two men were sentenced to life in prison and three others to lengthy prison terms in 2014 for their involvement, but relatives, colleagues and Western governments suspect Russian authorities will never identify or punish the masterminds behind her murder. , because full investigations would lead too close to the Putin Government or the Kremlin-backed leadership in Chechnya.

Alexander Litvinenko

​November 23, 2006: The former Russian security agent died in London after being poisoned with radioactive polonium-210. Litvinenko fled to Britain in 2000 after accusing the FSB of plotting to kill oligarch Boris Berezovsky. He later wrote a book blaming the FSB for the 1999 apartment bombing.

British investigations revealed that Litvinenko had drunk polonium-laced tea during a meeting with Russians Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun in a London hotel a few weeks earlier. Moscow refused to extradite the two men. In 2017, the United States blacklisted them under the Magnitsky Act.

Natalya Estemirova

July 16, 2009: The body of the well-known human rights activist, with bullet wounds to the head and chest, was found in Ingushetia, hours after her abduction near her home in the Chechen capital of Grozny.
Natalya Estemirova investigated hundreds of alleged human rights abuses in Chechnya, including kidnappings and murders. The group he worked for, Memorial, said initial investigations indicated the possible involvement of local law enforcement officers.

Memorial chief Oleg Orlov was later sued for defamation after he accused Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov of orchestrating Estemirova's murder, but he was eventually acquitted.

Sergei Magnitsky

November 16, 2009: The whistleblower who implicated Russian officials in an alleged $230 million tax fraud, died a year after being jailed on similar charges. Sergei Magnitsky suffered from pancreatitis and was denied medical care in detention – conditions that human rights activists said amounted to torture. According to the Kremlin's own Human Rights Council, he was badly beaten before he died.
In 2012, the United States passed the Magnitsky Act, which targets Russians implicated in human rights abuses. Based on this act, their visas are banned and their assets are frozen.

In July 2013, a Russian court found Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion. The posthumous trial was unprecedented.

Boris Nemtsov
February 27, 2015: The reformist regional former governor and deputy prime minister, who was a political rising star in the 1990s but became one of Putin's most vocal opponents, was shot dead on a bridge near the Kremlin, aged 55 years old.

A liberal lawmaker early in Putin's presidency, Nemtsov helped lead protests against parliamentary elections and Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. He strongly opposed Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, calling it "abhorrent," "shameless" and "harmful to Russia".

At the time of his murder, he and his associates had been working on a report detailing evidence of Moscow's interference in the neighboring country./REL


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