(Reuters) – Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was believed useless after a personal jet on which he was listed as a passenger crashed north of Moscow with no survivors.
Prigozhin, 62, spearheaded a mutiny towards Russia’s high military brass on June 23-24, which President Vladimir Putin stated might have tipped Russia into civil warfare.
Others who’ve opposed Putin or his pursuits have additionally died underneath unclear circumstances or come near loss of life.
Listed here are some particulars about these mysterious incidents:
ALEXEI NAVALNY
Russia’s most outstanding opposition chief, Alexei Navalny, was flown to Germany in August 2020 for medical remedy after being poisoned in Siberia with what Western consultants concluded was the army nerve agent Novichok. Russia has denied any involvement.
Navalny earned admiration world wide for voluntarily returning to Russia in 2021. He was instantly arrested on arrival. He’s now serving sentences totalling 11-1/2 years on fraud and different fees that he says are bogus. His political motion has been outlawed and declared “extremist”. Navalny had an additional 19 years in a most safety penal colony added to his jail time period lately.
SERGEI SKRIPAL
A former Russian double agent who handed secrets and techniques to British intelligence, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia have been discovered unconscious on a bench outdoors a purchasing centre within the English cathedral metropolis of Salisbury in March 2018.
They have been taken to hospital in important situation, and British officers stated they’d been poisoned with Novichok, a bunch of nerve brokers developed by the Soviet army within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties. Each survived.
Russia has denied any position within the poisoning and stated Britain was whipping up anti-Russian hysteria.
VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA
A Russian opposition activist, Vladimir Kara-Murza stated he believes makes an attempt have been made to poison him in 2015 and 2017. A German laboratory later discovered elevated ranges of mercury, copper, manganese and zinc in him, in response to medical reviews seen by Reuters. Moscow denied involvement.
ALEXANDER LITVINENKO
Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB agent and outspoken critic of Putin, died in 2006 aged 43 after consuming inexperienced tea laced with polonium-210, a uncommon and potent radioactive isotope, at London’s Millennium Lodge, British officers have stated.
Putin in all probability accepted the killing, a British inquiry concluded in 2016. The Kremlin has denied involvement.
An inquiry led by a senior British choose discovered that former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoy and one other Russian, Dmitry Kovtun, carried out the killing as a part of an operation that he stated was in all probability directed by Russia’s Federal Safety Service (FSB), the principle inheritor to the Soviet-era KGB.
Litvinenko fled Russia for Britain six years to the day earlier than he was poisoned.
ALEXANDER PEREPILICHNY
The 44-year-old Russian was discovered useless close to his luxurious dwelling on an unique gated property outdoors London after he had been out jogging in November 2012.
Alexander Perepilichny sought refuge in Britain in 2009 after serving to a Swiss investigation right into a Russian money-laundering scheme. His sudden loss of life raised options he may need been murdered.
British police dominated out foul play regardless of suspicions he may need been murdered with a uncommon poison. A pre-inquest listening to heard that traces of a uncommon and lethal poison from the gelsemium plant was present in his abdomen.
Perepilichny had loved a big bowl of soup containing sorrel, a preferred Russian dish. Russia denied involvement.
VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO
Viktor Yushchenko, then a Ukrainian opposition chief, was poisoned throughout the marketing campaign for the 2004 presidential election during which he ran on a pro-Western ticket towards the pro-Moscow Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich.
He stated he was poisoned whereas having dinner outdoors Kyiv with officers from the Ukrainian safety providers. Russia denied any involvement.
His physique was discovered to comprise 1,000 instances extra dioxin than is often current. His face and physique have been disfigured by the poisoning, and he had dozens of operations within the aftermath.
He gained the presidency in a re-run ballot after Ukraine’s Supreme Court docket struck down outcomes declaring Yanukovich the winner amid avenue protests dubbed the “Orange Revolution”.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who reported on human rights abuses, was shot useless outdoors her flat in Moscow on Oct. 7, 2006, after returning dwelling from the grocery store. The homicide of Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old mom of two, provoked an outcry within the West and underlined considerations concerning the risks to reporters working in Russia.
(Compiled by Lisa Shumaker; Enhancing by Cynthia Osterman)