US intelligence releases information about political assassinations ordered by the Kremlin: Bloomberg
Bloomberg agency got access to materials US intelligence related to Kremlin-sanctioned political assassinations, including of opponents of Vladimir Putin.
At the request of journalists, the report was partially declassified, but a large part of the information remained closed for security reasons.
The article mentions several high-profile cases:
- In 2004, GRU agents killed the former leader of the Chechen Republic, Ichkeria Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, in Qatar. The performers convicted in Qatar were later handed over to Russia, where their further fate is unknown.
- In 2006, ex-FSB officer Oleksandr Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium in London. The British investigation defined it as a special operation of the FSB and blamed Andrii Lugovoi, the current deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.
- In 2012, Russian businessman Oleksandr Perepelichny, who was a key witness in the case of money laundering by Russian officials, died in Great Britain under mysterious circumstances. The report suggested that he had been poisoned, although police found no direct evidence.
The report also mentions the assassination of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov in Moscow in 2015 and the death of former Putin media mogul Mikhail Lesin in Washington. Lessin died in a hotel room under circumstances that police attributed to “multiple falls.”
The murder of militant Oleksandr Bednov in Luhansk in 2015 is mentioned separately. His transport was shot at, and US intelligence believes it was a Kremlin operation aimed at strengthening its control over the region. Intelligence materials confirm the Kremlin’s targeted policy of eliminating political opponents and witnesses, using both special services and various methods of elimination.
