Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny died in prison Friday — the latest suspicious death to mark Vladimir Putin’s long reign as the country’s leader.
President Biden has already directly blamed the Kremlin strongman for Navalny’s sudden death, describing it as “proof of Putin’s brutality.”
In fact, dozens of his enemies have died in circumstances that include suicides, mysterious illnesses, falls from windows, gunshot wounds, and exploding planes.
“Putin does not want to murder people directly,” said Russia expert John O’Neill, co-author of “The Dancer and the Devil: Stalin, Pavlova and the Road to the Great Pandemic.
“If he does, he gets exposed all over the world. He wants people appearing to kill themselves or seeming to die from unusual diseases. Putin wants to kill people on a deniable basis.
“At the same time, everyone in Russia knows that these people are being murdered. It sends a message to those associated with Putin: You better stay in line.”
Here are just some of Putin’s apparent victims.
Mercenary killed in exploding plane
Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin’s chef-turned-mercenary oligarch
Cause of death: Private jet explosion, August 23, 2023
Prigozhin started as Putin’s chef and then ran the feared Wagner private military group for the Kremlin in eastern Ukraine, Syria, and Africa.
But when it became the key force in the bogged-down Ukraine invasion, he started criticizing the military — then in June 2023 launched his own rebellion, beginning a tank charge from Ukraine to Moscow, which he stopped short of the capital with assurances he would live.
He was said to be staying away from windows but in August 2023 boarded a private jet with some of Wagner’s top commanders in Moscow. It exploded in mid-air, with Western intelligence suggesting a bomb was on board.
Putin, inevitably, denied involvement.
Poisoned by polonium tea in London
Alexander Litvinenko, former KGB Agent
Cause of death: Radiation poisoning, November 23, 2006
The former KGB agent ran afoul of Putin when he became critical of the Russian strongman.
He fell violently ill after drinking tea with two Russian men in a five-star London Hotel. Litivenko was dead days later, incurably poisoned by radiation from the polonium found in his tea.
So strong was the dose that his post-mortem examination has been described as “one of the most dangerous ever.”
‘Faked’ murder-suicide in Spain
Sergey Protosenya. Former deputy chairman of Novatek
Cause of death: Hanged from a handrail; wife and daughter found dead in their beds with axe and stab wounds, April 19, 2022
Protosenya, said to be worth $400 million, is believed to have had information about how underhanded financing of gas companies funneled personal wealth to Putin, who claims to live on a modest government salary.
The death at his seaside home in Lloret de Mar, near Barcelona, Spain, was made to look like a murder-suicide but Anders Aslant, author of Russia’s Crony Capitalism, told The Post, “This looks like Kremlin murders to me.”
Shot beside the Kremlin
Boris Nemtsov, former Russian deputy prime minister
Cause of death: Shot from behind while crossing a bridge near the Kremlin, February 27, 2015
Nemtsov had been a rising politician and was once considered a possible successor to Boris Yeltsin, who instead handed power to Putin — who has never let go.
But Nemtsov crossed Putin by becoming a prominent opposition figure, denouncing the strongman’s “mad, aggressive” policies. His death so close to the Russian center of power was seen as a warning to anyone else planning to oppose Putin.
Plunged from 16th story
Marina Yahkina, defense official
Cause of death: Fell from 16th-story apartment. February 15, 2023
As finance director of the Western Military District Yahkina played a major role in funding the war in Ukraine — which has not gone to Putin’s plan, leading to a series of officials being purged.
Russia’s military has long been mired in corruption, which Western observers say has been one of the reasons for its disastrous performance at the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
It is unclear whether or not she lived in the apartment out of which she fell. One report on a local Telegram channel claimed Yahkina called her husband and told him she was going to jump, prior to leaping. But such a claim would also be useful in covering up a murder.
Plunged from 9-story building
Dan Rapoport, businessman
Cause of death: fell from the window of his Washington DC apartment, August 14, 2022
Rapport was a Russian nightclub king and businessman who exiled himself to the US after speaking out against Putin.
At the time of his death, he was feuding with a Russian venture capital firm, claiming the VCs were trying to cheat him. His wife insisted that the death could not have been self-inflicted — and he was found with $2,600 in cash in his pocket, along with his cell phone and a Florida driver’s license.
Plunged from 6th-floor hospital window
Ravil Maganov, chairman of Lukoil
Cause of death: Fell from a sixth-floor window, September 1, 2022
Maganov ran Russia’s biggest oil company — a key source of the country’s income — but dared to express criticism of Putin’s war with Ukraine. The Lukoil board called the invasion “tragic.”
Russian state media described Maganov’s death as a suicide, claiming he jumped from a hospital window while being treated for depression and a heart condition. Two people who knew him ridiculed the claim to Reuters.
Journalist shot in the head
Natalya Estemirova, historian and human rights proponent
Cause of death: Abducted and shot in the head and left on the side of road, July 15, 2009.
Estemirova taught history in a local high school and worked as a newspaper correspondent, becoming an outspoken critic of Russia’s human rights abuses in Chechnya — the first place Putin honed his strongman tactics and use of the military against civilians.
She shouted to witnesses that she was being abducted from her home in Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, and was found shot dead hours later. Authorities claimed she was killed by a rebel who was conveniently killed in an airstrike.
Journalist targeted twice
Anna Politkovskaya, investigative journalist
Cause of death: Gunned down October 7, 2006
Politkovskaya was born in New York and raised in Moscow. As a reporter, she wrote stories critical of Russia and its military, particularly on its human rights record in Chechnya, for Novaya Gazeta, but fell foul of Putin for a highly critical biography of the president.
First, she was poisoned while flying within Russia on assignment but survived. Then she was shot point blank in the chest, shoulder, and head outside her Moscow apartment.
Western intelligence files released by leaker Edward Snowden blame Putin’s FSB for the murder.
Washington death before DOJ quiz
Mikhail Lesin, founder of Russia’s English language television network RT
Cause of death: Blunt force trauma to head and acute intoxication, November 5, 2015
A one-time advisor to Putin, Lesin evolved into a Russian media mogul.
But he died in a Washington DC hotel room just one day before he was to be interviewed by the Justice Department about his Kremlin-funded TV channel.
In US intelligence circles, his death is believed to be a “hit job” right out of Putin’s playbook for assassins.
Liberal’s death before FBI meet
Yuri Shchekochikhin, journalist and opposition lawmaker
Cause of Death: Mysterious ailment; medical documents lost or destroyed, July 3, 2003
A liberal member of the Russian parliament and a journalist, Shchekochikhin campaigned against the influence of organized crime. He also blew the whistle on how the Kursk submarine rescue in 2000 was botched, dooming its crew to certain death.
But just prior to a trip to the US where he was scheduled to meet with FBI agents he became mysteriously ill. Before his own radiation poisoning, Alexander Litvinenko suggested it was an FSB hit.
Liberal shot as he ran for office
Sergei Yushenkov, co-chair of Liberal Russia party
Cause of death: Shot near his home in Moscow, April 17, 2003
A former member of the Russian military, Yushenkov pushed for liberal causes and was critical of the Chechen Wars, Putin’s signature policy in the early years of his presidency.
Yushenkov was gunned down hours after registering his party to run in a parliamentary election.
Oligarch turncoat hanged
Boris Berezovsky, Kremlin insider turned outspoken critic of Putin
Cause of death: Hanging, March 23, 2013
Berezovsky was a brilliant mathematician — and possibly a KGB officer — who gained control of Russia’s primary TV channel in the 1990s and used it to help Putin get elected, as well as founding Putin’s first political party.
His business acumen helped establish some of Russia’s biggest companies and meant he knew the oligarchs’ innermost financial secrets.
But in 2000 he suddenly turned against Putin, sought exile with his billions in London, and became a vocal critic of the increasingly authoritarian Kremlin leader.
Thirteen years later he was found hanging in his Surrey mansion, just outside London, in a locked bathroom with no signs of violence.
Putin’s spokesman claimed Berezovsky had sent a letter of apology shortly before his death; his friends refuted the idea.
Four star general’s death
Alexei Maslov, Russian general
Cause of death: Died unexpectedly in military hospital, no cause given, December 25, 2022
Maslow had been Russia’s chief military representative to NATO and commander in chief of his country’s ground forces before retiring in 2011 with the rank of General of the Army, the equivalent of a four-star general in the US.
That made him part of a military leadership that presided over years of corruption and graft which left large parts of the armed forces ill-equipped and unprepared.
His death was as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was grinding into its second year with no victories to show and a series of top commanders being removed from their roles by the Kremlin.
