Latest Putin opponents to die
Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent Alexei Navalny died on Friday at the remote penal colony where he was serving his 19-year prison sentence, the Russian prison service announced.
Russian authorities said Mr Navalny felt unwell after going on a walk at the IK-3 penal colony in Kharp, about 1,900km (1,200 miles) north-east of Moscow, before he fell unconscious and died.
The prison service said he died despite efforts to resuscitate him with the cause of death yet to be established.
His wife, Yulia Navalnaya, said she does not know whether to believe if her husband has died because the Russian president and his government “lie constantly”.
The death of Mr Navalny, who was jailed after being found guilty of extremism charges, sparked global outrage and many Western leaders have said the Russian leader should be held accountable for his death.
The politician is the latest opponent of Mr Putin who has died in mysterious circumstances in recent years after clashing with the Russian leader – with some dying as a result of poisonings, plane crashes and after falling from windows.
Here i takes a look at some of the military chiefs, government officials, weapons suppliers and transport chiefs who have died under Mr Putin’s watch.
The high-profile figures who have died after locking horns with Putin
- Yevgeny Prigozhin – the former boss of the Wagner mercenary group, who was behind a failed coup against Russia’s armed forces, died in a Russian plane crash alongside some of his top lieutenants in August last year.
- Grigory Klinishov – the scientist behind Russia’s thermonuclear bombs was found dead after a reported suicide in June 2023.
- Pyotr Kucherenko – the senior Russian official and state security and deputy minister fell suddenly ill on a flight from Cuba to Russia and died in May 2023. Kucherenko is reported to have previously publicly criticised Russia’s occupation of Ukraine months prior to his death.
- General Vladimir Makarov – former Russian interior ministry official was found dead of suspected suicide in February 2023, a week after being fired from his position by Mr Putin.
- Dmitry Pawochka – the former manager of multiple large Russian companies, including space corporation Roscosmos, was found dead after a fire, alleged to have been started by a lit cigarette in his Moscow home in January 2023.
- General Alexei Maslov – the former commander in chief of Russian ground forces and former Russian representative to Nato suffered a “sudden” and “untimely” death in a military hospital in December 2022.
- Alexander Buzakov – the general director of United Shipbuilding Corporation, which produces carriers for Kinzhal cruise missiles, died “suddenly” in December 2022, a day after attending a float-out ceremony for a new attack submarine.
- Roman Malyk – the Russian military commissar was found dead with signs of suicide, which close contacts dispute, in October 2022.
- Vladimir Sungorkin – the editor-in-chief of a popular Russian media outlet and alleged key ally of the Russian president died of a reported stroke in September 2022.
- Yuri Voronov – the CEO of Astra Shipping transport company, with links to leading Russian energy giant Gazprom, was found floating in his St Petersburg pool with a gunshot wound to the head in July 2022.
Deadly falls
Although their cause of deaths have never been officially confirmed, multiple high-profile individuals are reported to have died after falling from windows following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Kristina Baikova, a 28-year-old vice-president at Moscow-based Loko-Bank, is alleged to have fallen to her death from the window of her 11th-floor apartment in Moscow in June 2023.
Earlier that month, federal judge Artyom Barteney fell 12 stories from his apartment window in Kazan, on the morning he was due to preside over a trial.
In February, Marina Yankina – the 58-year-old head of the Russian defence ministry’s financial support department for the Western Military District, who played a key role in funding Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine – fell 16 floors from her high-rise apartment window in St Petersburg.
Meanwhile, Pavel Antov, a millionaire Moscow-born politician and businessman who founded the “Vladmirsky Standart” meat-processing plant, died in December 2022 after falling from the window of an Indian hotel where he was celebrating his 65th birthday.
That incident also came just days after Antov’s friend and travel companion, Vladimir Budanov, died of a suspected heart attack in the same hotel.
Following Antov’s death, the BBC reported that the “sausage tycoon” had previously criticised Russian military action in Kyiv through the posting of a message on his WhatsApp account. Antov later declared his support for Mr Putin on social media, claiming that the message, which was promptly deleted, had been posted accidentally and was not his opinion but simply a misunderstanding.
Two others with ties to Mr Putin, the Kremlin or Russia’s top business sectors to have met a similar fate in 2022 were Ravil Maganov and Dan Rapaport.
Rapaport, a Latvian-American financial executive who previously held senior positions in several Russian financial institutions, left his home in Ukraine for the US following Russia’s invasion.
By August 2022, however, the 52-year-old outspoken critic of Mr Putin and the war in Ukraine had fallen from the window of his apartment in Washington, DC and died.
Maganov, the former chairman of Russia’s second-largest oil producer, fell through a hospital window in September 2022. Six months before his death, Maganov’s company – Lukoil – and its board called for the “soonest termination of the armed conflict” and expressed “sincere empathy for all victims” in a statement.
Also recently suffering sudden falls resulting in their death were: Andrei Krukovsky, director of a Sochi ski resort where Mr Putin is said to have repeatedly invited guests, who fell off a cliff while hiking in May 2022; Anatoly Gerashchenko, the former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute, who fell down flights of stairs at the institute in September 2022; Grigory Kochenov, creative director of large Russian IT company Agima, who reportedly walked off the balcony of his home in western Russia in December 2022; and Dmitry Zelenov, a billionaire property mogul who is alleged to have become suddenly unwell while on holiday in the French Riviera before either toppling down stairs or over a railing in December 2022.
‘Murder-suicides’ and mysterious circumstances
Between March and April 2022, three top executives – two in the energy sector – were found dead alongside members of their families in apparent murder-suicides.
The first, billionaire head of medical supply company Medstom, Vasily Melnikov, was discovered in his home with stab wounds in March 2022. Melnikov’s wife and two young sons were also found deceased with similar injuries.
A month later, Vladislav Avayev – an ex-Kremlin official and vice president of Gazprombank, a subsidiary of Gazprom – was reported to have shot his wife and daughter in their Moscow home before turning the gun on himself.
The very next day, fellow Russian millionaire Sergei Protosenya, was found hanged in a rental home in Spain. The wife and daughter of the former deputy chairman of Novatek (Russia’s second-largest natural gas producer, behind Gazprom) were also found inside the Spanish villa in April 2022, reportedly stabbed to death.
Several other top figures at big Russian energy companies, including Gazprom, are among those reported to have died as a result of suicide since the beginning of 2022.
Leon Shulman, the head of Gazprom affiliate Gazprom Invest’s transport service, was found dead, accompanied by a suicide note, in January 2022. The following month, the body of Gazprom deputy general director Alexander Tyulyakov was found hanged alongside a note, in the garage of his apartment near St Petersburg.
Mikhail Tolstosheya (who changed his surname to Watford after moving to the UK decades ago) was also found dead under unconfirmed circumstances at his home in Surrey just days later. The Ukrainian-born oligarch reportedly made his fortune as an oil and gas executive.
In May 2022, Alexander Subbotin, billionaire former manager of Lukoil, was found dead in the basement of a house outside Moscow after allegedly having consulted a shaman about curing his hangover with toad venom.
And it hasn’t just been big names in the energy sector, either.
From military men and weapons suppliers to government officials, transport chiefs and the media, more high-profile figures to have died recently include:
‘Sudden Russian death syndrome’
There is an argument to be made that some of these deaths may be due to nothing more than old age or health complications, mere accidents, or suicide as reported. Russia has a notably high suicide rate, which is believed to have worsened in the wake of war-induced sanctions imposed on the country.
Historian, author and military strategy expert Edward Luttwak told The Atlantic: “Imagine what happens to a globalised country when sanctions kick in.”
But the country also has a history of unsolved or suspicious deaths of prominent Russians, and action from Mr Putin and the Kremlin against political opponents have become increasingly prominent in recent years.
Poisonings
Several former members of the Russian intelligence services who defected to the West and have opposed the Russian leader have been targeted.
Among them are Alexander Litvinenko, a former member of the FSB security services who died of polonium-210 poisoning in London in 2006.
His killers were accused of lacing his tea with a radioactive element. An inquiry led by the European Court of Human Rights concluded that Russian agents had killed Litvinenko, probably with Mr Putin’s approval.
In 2018, the novichok nerve agent was left on the doorknob of a house in Salisbury, Wiltshire belonging to Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer.
Mr Skripal, who was convicted on treason charges in Russia before moving to the UK, nearly died in the attack along with his daughter, Yulia.
At the time, the British government claimed agents from the Russian GRU military intelligence agency carried out the attack – and said Mr Putin was responsible for it.
The Kremlin denied the allegations and has not investigated agents who are suspected to have poisoned Mr Skripal.
