Poisionings… assassinations…
mysterious illnesses — many journalists and outspoken critics of Vladimir Putin have
died since he took power over two decades ago.
So was the Russian President responsible for their deaths?
Keep watching to find out.
Anna Politkovskaya got into journalism early, working as a reporter for Izvestia right after
college, and then becoming a journalist for Novaya Gazeta in 1999.
At Novaya Gazeta, Politkovskaya became nationally known for her reporting, especially due to
her writing about the Second Chechen War.
Traveling through Chechnya and Ingushetia, Politkovskaya reported on the human rights
abuses that were taking place on both sides of the conflict.
She was also critical of Ramzan Kadyrov, who was installed by Vladimir Putin as the prime
minister of Chechnya.
In her last interview with the news website Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, Politkovskaya
gave this description of Kadyrov:
"[Kadyrov is] a puppet [...] coward armed to the teeth and surrounded by security guards.
I don't think he will become president [of Chechnya]."
Less than one year after Politkovskaya's murder, Putin named Kadyrov as acting president of
Chechnya.
Politkovskaya was also vocally critical of Putin and wrote several books, such as Putin's
Russia, that denounced the corruption and human rights abuses enabled and promoted by
Putin and his administration.
On October 7, 2006, Politkovskaya was found dead in the elevator of her Moscow apartment
building.
She had been shot five times, with four of the shots fired at point-blank range.
Six men were sentenced to prison for the murder, and although her murder was considered a contract
killing, it's never been proven who paid for the assassination.
Alexander Litvinenko joined the KGB in 1988 and continued his work as the Russian spy
organization became the FSB in the 1990s.
But in 1998, Litvinenko accused the FSB of illegal activities and exposed a plot to murder
Boris Berezovsky, who would later be assassinated in 2013.
Litvinenko was briefly arrested for, quote, "abusing his office."
After being acquitted, he fled to the United Kingdom in 2000, where he was granted asylum.
There, Litvinenko wrote two books, including Blowing Up Russia, in which he accused FSB
agents of illegal and terroristic activites such as perpetrating the 1999 Moscow apartment
bombings.
Litvinenko was also outspoken in his criticism of Putin and his human rights violations in
Chechnya.
On November 1, 2006, after meeting Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitriy Kovtun at the Millennium
Hotel in London, Litvinenko fell ill.
On November 23, Litvinenko died from acute radiation injury, the same day that doctors
were finally able to attribute his illness to polonium-210 In September 2021, the European
Court of Human Rights found that it was beyond a reasonable doubt that Litvinenko's assassination
had been carried out by Lugovoy and Kovtun.
"Did you kill Alexander Litvinenko?"
"Of course not.
I want to stress that officially I'm just a witness and not even a suspect."
A 2016 British inquiry also concluded that the killing was likely directed by the FSB.
Although the Russian administration has repeatedly denied involvement in Litvinenko's murder,
Russian authorities have also failed to carry out an investigation or prove that the assassination
was a rogue operation.
"I think it will alter the way that millions and millions of people around the world view
Mr. Putin."
Sergei Magnitsky worked as a tax adviser for the investment company Hermitage Capital,
which Russian authorities started investigating for tax avoidance in the late 2000s.
On June 4, 2007, authorities raided Hermitage Capital's Moscow offices.
After the raid, Magnitsky alleged that officials from the Russian Interior Ministry were able
to fraudulently take over companies belonging to Hermitage Capital and get $230 million
out of the Russian tax system.
However, after Magnitsky presented formal complaints to the authorities in 2008, the
subsequent investigative team ended up arresting Magnitsky.
Magnitsky was held in detention for 11 months, and on July 1, 2009, he was diagnosed with
pancreatitis and gallstones.
An operation was scheduled, but on the day of the operation Magnitsky was transferred
to Butyrka prison, which lacked the medical equipment and facilities necessary to treat
him.
"They would deny him food at various times, deny him water."
This was also the sixth time that Magnitsky was moved to another detention center.
On November 16, 2009, Magnitsky was found dead in his cell after his condition had deteriorated
without treatment.
The European Court of Human Rights determined that Magnitsky was imprisoned out of revenge
and that the state failed to protect the prisoner's life and health.
However, there was no mention of whether Magnitsky was murdered in the court's decision.
Starting off as a provincial governor in 1991, Boris Nemtsov was the youngest governor in
post-Soviet Russia.
Nemtsov became Boris Yeltsin's deputy prime minister and many thought that he would succeed
Yeltsin as president.
Instead, Putin became president of the Russian Federation in 2000.
Although Nemstov initially tried to work with Putin, he soon joined the opposition along
with his party, the Union of Right Forces, after his party was voted out of the parliament
in 2003.
Nemtsov supported Ukraine's Orange Revolution in 2004 and was vocally critical of Russia's
invasion and occupation of Ukraine, as well as its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
At the time of his death, Nemtsov was involved in organizing a rally in Moscow against Russia's
military involvement in Ukraine.
On February 27, 2015, Nemtsov was shot in the back four times while crossing a bridge
near the Kremlin in Moscow.
In one of his last interviews, Nemtsov said that he was afraid Putin was going to have
him murdered.
Almost immediately, the investigative committee into his death claimed that Islamic extremism
was being considered a possible motive.
The New Yorker reported that a former political adviser to Putin and critic of the Kremlin
said that the president was "stunned" by the murder.
Five Chechen men were later arrested and found guilty of assassinating Nemtsov after being
contracted to do so.
However, it's unknown who was responsible for contracting the killing.
Anastasia Baburova was a journalism student at Moscow State University.
At the time of her murder, she was working as a freelance journalist for Novaya Gazeta.
Her work primarily focused on race-motivated crimes and neo-Nazi groups, and Novaya Gazeta
was frequently critical of Putin's government.
On January 19, 2009, Baburova was covering a news conference at which Stanislav Markelov
, a human rights lawyer, disparaged the early release of Yuri Budanov, a Russian army officer
who had been convicted of abducting and murdering Elza Kungaeva, a young Chechen woman, in March
2000.
After the news conference, as Baburova and Markelov walked and talked, a person wearing
a ski mask came up and shot Markelov in the back of the head.
Frontline Defenders writes that as Baburova tried to stop the murderer, she was also shot
in the head.
Baburova died several hours later.
According to Ali Askerov's book, Historical Dictionary of the Chechen Conflict, Baburova
was the fourth Novaya Gazeta journalist to be murdered since 2000.
Nikita Tikhonov and Yevgeniya Khasis , described as members of the ultranationalist group Russkiy
Obraz, were convicted of the murders.
Ilya Goryachev was later sentenced to life in prison and determined to be the mastermind
of Baburova and Markelov's deaths.
Stanislav Markelov was a prominent human rights advocate and lawyer in the Russian Federation.
Markelov's work often focused on defending people who were victims of police brutality
or attacks from neo-Nazis.
Markelov was also known for defending dissident journalists and antifascists.
Before being assassinated in the same incident as Anastasia Baburova, Markelov announced
at the press conference that he planned to appeal the early release of Yuri Budanov with
the International Court.
Although right-wing extremists were convicted for Markelov's murder, some have questioned
whether or not security services were also involved.
These suspicions come out of the fact that the weapon used to assassinate Markelov and
Baburova was a gun model that was only made available to Russian military and security
service personnel.
Boris Berezovsky was a former engineer who sold cars after the fall of the Soviet Union.
By 1994, he'd survived one assassination attempt that resulted in the death of his driver.
In 1994, Berezovsky also acquired ORT, a television channel, and used it to help Boris Yeltsin
win the presidential election in 1996.
Berezovsky wielded a great deal of power in Yeltsin's administration, and when Putin succeeded
Yeltsin as president, Berezovsky had this to say about the new Russian leader:
"I think that Putin will continue the way that President Yeltsin established Russia."
But before long, the two were at odds with one another to such a point where Putin seized
ORT from Berezovsky, causing Berezovsky to flee to London.
Berezovsky was granted political asylum in the U.K. in 2003, and in 2007, a Russian court
convicted him of fraud and tax evasion in absentia.
Meanwhile, Berezovsky accused Putin of poisoning Litvinenko.
On March 23, 2013, Berezovsky was found dead with a scarf around his neck at his home in
Ascot, England.
Reuters reports that coroner Peter Bedford recorded an open verdict at the inquest, saying
that it was impossible to be absolutely certain whether or not Berezovsky killed himself or
was murdered.
Others have suggested that since Berezovsky was often used as a scapegoat for the Russian
government, it's possible that the authorities would have been more interested in keeping
him alive.
Natalya Estemirova started working with Memorial Human Rights Centre, a Russian human-rights
organization in Grozny, Chechnya, in September 1999 — and she knew from the start what
risks she was facing.
The Guardian described her death as both "appalling and predictable," especially since she was
a close friend and collaborator of both Politkovskaya and Markelov.
After Politkovskaya's murder in 2006, Estemirova started actively publishing in Novaya Gazeta.
Estemirova was described by Human Rights Watch as one of Chechnya's most prominent rights
defenders.
She was especially instrumental in revealing the "mopping-up operation" in Novy Aldy on
February 5, 2000.
In the days after the massacre and destruction, Estemirova gathered video footage and compiled
them with video recordings made by villagers in the film Aldy.
On July 15, 2009, Estemirova was kidnapped near her home in Grozny and murdered later
that day in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.
The Guardian reports that Estemirova's friends believe her death was a "state-sponsored execution,"
meant to scare residents and activists from seeking aid or working in Chechnya.
On September 13, 2021, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that although Russia
had failed to properly investigate Estemirova's murder, it didn't find the Russian authorities
to be directly responsible for kidnapping or the murder.
As of October 2021, no one has ever been charged or prosecuted for Estemirova's murder.
Despite being a member of the Communist Party from 2011 to 2016, Denis Voronenkov and his
party were considered unofficial Kremlin allies for years.
But after fleeing to Ukraine with his wife in October 2016, Voronenkov became a vocal
critic of Putin.
Voronenkov also claimed that he only supported the annexation of Crimea due to political
pressure.
Voronenkov was going to testify against Ukraine's former president Victor Yanukovych.
On the day of his murder, Voronenkov also had plans to meet with Ilya Ponomarev, another
former Duma member who fled Russia because he voted against the annexation of Crimea.
On March 23, 2017, Voronenkov was shot and killed in Kyiv in broad daylight.
The attacker, identified as Pavlo Parshov, was also shot by Voronenkov's bodyguard and
later died in the hospital.
Although Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko claimed that Voronenkov's murder
was a contract killing, it's never been proven who was behind Voronenkov's murder.
Nikolay Glushkov was close with Boris Berezovsky and would end up being found dead five years
after his friend's untimely demise.
A businessman who was at one point deputy director of Aeroflot airline, Glushkov fled
Russia after he was accused of fraud and sought asylum in the United Kingdom.
Glushov was granted political asylum in 2010, and in 2017, a Russian court found him guilty
in absentia of stealing over $118 million from Aeroflot.
After Berezovsky's death in 2013, Glushkov was adamant that foul play was involved, and
in an interview with The Guardian, he noted that the list of Russians who opposed Putin
was shrinking.
Five years later, on March 12, 2018, Glushkov was found strangled in his home.
In April 2021, coroners ruled that Glushkov was murdered.
As of February 2022, Glushkov's murder remains unsolved.
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