Details of Assassinations of Putin's Political Opponents Declassified

The U.S. intelligence has declassified information regarding the assassinations of Putin's political opponents. Intelligence agencies believe that Russian special services were involved in the murders, directed personally by President Putin, who made key decisions regarding these operations. This was reported by Bloomberg.

The assassinations notably took place between 2000 and 2016.

In 2004, former leader of Chechnya's Ichkeria, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, was killed in Qatar. The perpetrators of the murder, military personnel Anatoly Bilashkov and Vasily Bogachov, were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Qatari court, but were soon transferred to Russia. In their homeland, they were supposed to remain in prison, but the federal penitentiary service announced in 2005 that it did not know their whereabouts.

In 2006, former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service Alexander Litvinenko died in London after exposure to the radioactive poison polonium. A British investigation named Andrey Lugovoy, an officer of the Russian security service, as the direct executor of the assassination, who later became a member of the State Duma. The murder itself has been acknowledged in Great Britain as a special operation carried out by the Federal Bureau of Intelligence.

In 2012, businessman Alexander Perepilichny, a key witness in a money laundering case involving Russian officials, died in the UK. U.S. intelligence claims he was poisoned, although British police found insufficient evidence to support this.

In 2015, separatist Alexander Bednov was killed in Luhansk. Armed individuals fired upon his armored bus. According to the U.S., the murder was carried out by the Kremlin to strengthen control in the occupied region.

A document from U.S. national intelligence indicates that Moscow systematically employs intelligence agencies to eliminate those it considers a threat to the regime. Experts believe there is a high likelihood that such assassinations will continue.