US intelligence declassifies data: how Putin’s opponents were killed - Bloomberg
The Russian government uses intelligence services abroad to eliminate those it considers a threat to the Kremlin regime. The assassinations of Vladimir Putin's political opponents are likely to continue.
According to Censor.NET, Bloomberg reports this with reference to a partially declassified report by the US National Intelligence Agency on the assassinations of Russian President Putin 's political opponents abroad.
The document contains a list of murders committed since the early 2000s. US intelligence believes that they were carried out by Russian special services and authorised by Putin himself.
Elimination of undesirables
The first case mentioned in the report is the 2004 murder in Qatar of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, the former head of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
The perpetrators of the murder, officers of the Russian GRU of the Russian Ministry of Defence, Anatoly Bilashkov and Vasily Bogachev, were sentenced to life imprisonment by a Qatari court, but were soon transferred to Russia. They were to spend the rest of their sentences in prison in their home country, but their fate is unknown. As early as 2005, the Federal Penitentiary Service stated that it did not know where they were.
Next, the death of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 is mentioned. He was poisoned with radioactive polonium and died of radiation sickness.
Investigators in the UK named the officer of the Russian Main Directorate of Security, Andrei Lugovoy, who later became a member of the State Duma, as the direct perpetrator of the murder, and the murder itself as a special operation of the FSB.
The death of Russian businessman Alexander Perepelichny in 2012 in the UK is also cited as the work of Russian special services. He was considered one of the key informants in the case of alleged money laundering in Europe by Russian officials and died shortly before he was due to testify in court.
The US intelligence document claims that he was poisoned, although the British police investigating Perepelychnyi's death found no sufficient evidence.
Killing separatists
The death in 2015 of Luhansk militant, commander of the 'Batman' unit Oleksandr Bednov is also mentioned. The armoured bus Bednov was travelling in was shot by armed men.
The prosecutor's office stated that Bednov and his subordinates refused to comply with the demands of the LPR group. However, a number of LPR officials believe that the reason for the murder was Bednov's disagreements with the group's then leader, Igor Plotnytsky.
The US intelligence document suggests that Bednov and several other prominent leaders of the Donetsk and Luhansk separatists were killed on the orders of the Kremlin to strengthen Russian control in the region.
Russia will continue to carry out such killings
US National Intelligence officials point out in the report that Moscow uses intelligence services abroad to eliminate those it considers a threat to the Kremlin regime, and that there is evidence of the Kremlin's involvement in other assassinations of its opponents, but it is less complete.
According to the document, intelligence experts believe that such killings are likely to continue.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to Bloomberg's requests for comment.
