Chilling documents, declassified by US intelligence, revealed the names of Vladimir Putin's political enemies who became “targets for his assassination.”
Many influential Russians have died in mysterious circumstances throughout Putin's “disastrous” 25 years of rule after opposing, criticizing or outrunning the angry tyrant.
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From plane crashes to poisonings and a series of mysterious falls from windows, bizarre deaths show the long and bloodthirsty reach of his intelligence services.
Many security officials have so far blamed the Kremlin for these mysterious killings, with security experts claiming that Putin ordered them to fulfill his political ambitions.
But, for the first time, a credible intelligence report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has proven a connection between the Kremlin and many of these targeted killings.
The top-secret memo, which was released after a mandatory declassification review at the request of a Bloomberg journalist, reveals that Putin directly ordered several assassinations.
“We assess that Putin may be allowing the assassination of prominent figures abroad,” the intelligence assessment said.
He added, “The Russian government will continue to use its intelligence services and other loyal entities to assassinate suspected terrorists as well as individuals abroad whom it considers a threat.” […] Vladimir Putin's regime.
He added: “Our level of confidence in this ruling is high, based on official Russian statements and the findings of foreign governments
Countries where assassinations occurred.
The report describes that the “first clear case” of Putin ordering an assassination abroad occurred in 2004 in Qatar when Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, the former president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, was assassinated.
Authorities found that the murder was carried out by officers from Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), Anatoly Belashkov and Vasily Pugachev, according to Pravada.
They were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Qatari court, but were later extradited to Russia where they were expected to serve the rest of the Senate.
However, Russian prison authorities later claimed they had never found them.
In 2006, former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in London.
The 44-year-old former Russian spy died a painful death three weeks after radioactive polonium-210 slipped into his tea cup.
He fled to Britain after criticizing President Putin, and after his death, it was revealed that MI6 had paid him off.
It is suspected that his killing occurred personally by Putin, which the Kremlin has always denied.
Two of his companions, Dmitry Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, were accused of carrying out the operation.
The couple, who face US sanctions, are wanted in the UK for Litvinenko's murder.
The US intelligence report on the assassination said: “The official British investigation into Litvinenko’s killing concluded that Putin ‘probably approved’ it, based on a review of the physical evidence and decision-making on matters relating to the security services.”
In 2012, Russian businessman Alexander Perepilichnyy, 44, collapsed in Weybridge, Surrey, after spending the night with his mistress in Paris.
The US intelligence document claims that he died of poisoning, saying: “[Perepilichnyy] He was reportedly assassinated with a biological poison in the UK in 2012 shortly before he was scheduled to testify about the Kremlin's tax fraud network.
Intelligence also indicates that Alexander Bednov, a separatist leader who was a vocal critic of the Kremlin, was killed on the orders of Vladimir Putin in 2015.
“At least some of the key separatist figures in Ukraine’s Donbass region who resisted the Kremlin’s orders, such as Oleksandr Bednov, may have been killed at Moscow’s request, reflecting Russia’s priority in maintaining its control over the region,” it reads.
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While the document reveals a few high-profile assassinations understood to have ties to Moscow, dozens of other Russia critics have died in mysterious circumstances.
Putin's most vocal opponent, Alexei Navalny, 47, died in February in the strict Polar Wolf prison in the Russian Arctic, while serving a 19-year sentence on trumped-up “extremism” charges.
Navalny is believed to have been killed with a single punch to the heart after being forced to spend hours in freezing temperatures.
Experts said this brutal tactic was once a “hallmark of the KGB.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the 62-year-old outspoken and endless Putin critic and head of the Wagner mercenary group, died in August last year in a private plane crash, according to Russia's Investigative Committee.
He was a close confidant of Putin before he launched a rebellion in June last year, vowing to “punish” Russia for the deadly missile attack on one of his training camps in eastern Ukraine.
Putin criticized the uprising, calling it a “deadly blow” to Russia and a “knife in the back of our people.”
Meanwhile, a Russian TV chef who fled to London after opposing Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine was found dead in a Belgrade hotel.
Alexei Zimin, 52, died suddenly during a promotional tour in the Serbian capital with authorities saying his cause of death remains “unclear”.
Zimin – Russia's answer to Jamie Oliver – met the famous British chef and was also friends with Hollywood star Jude Law.
He is the latest in a long line of Putin's enemies to die suddenly since the bloody conflict began in February 2022.
In December 2023, Vladimir Egorov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fell to his death from a third-floor window in Moscow.
Egorov, 46, was a wealthy and prominent politician in the oil-rich city of Tobolsk in western Siberia.
Just weeks ago, the deputy editor of Putin's favorite propaganda newspaper was found dead. He was only 35 years old.
The body of Anna Tsareva, 35, was discovered in her home on Bolshoi Tishinsky Street in the capital, almost a year after the death of her boss, Vladimir Sungorkin, 68.
In February of the same year, Marina Yankina, 58, a senior Russian defense official and a key figure in financing Putin's illegal war in Ukraine, fell 160 feet to her death in St. Petersburg.
She was the head of the Ministry of Defense's financial support department for the Western Military District, which was closely involved in the dictator's invasion.
Earlier this year, the editor-in-chief of the state-run television empire was discovered to have died after suspected poisoning.
Zoya Konovalova, 48, who ran a channel operating near the front lines of Mad Vlad's illegal war, has been found alongside her ex-husband.
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