18 Suspicious Russian Deaths or Near Deaths

The 52-year-old prominent human rights advocate was critical of Moscow’s involvement in the war-ravaged Chechen Republic and Russia’s powerful Federal Security Service (FSB). He was shot several times in the chest as he entered his apartment block a day after registering his political party for the 2003 parliamentary elections. He was the third eminent politician to be assassinated in eight months after fellow Liberal Russia member Vladimir Golovlyov, 45, was gunned down walking his dog in Moscow in August 2002.

The 53-year-old deputy editor of the independent biweekly Novaya Gazeta died from what doctors said was an allergic reaction. But the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists reported that Shchekochikhin’s relatives and colleagues believe he was poisoned for his work investigating a corruption case involving officials from the Federal Security Services (FSB) and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The 48-year-old-journalist’s work investigating human rights abuses by Russian soldiers in Chechnya for the independent biweekly Novaya Gazeta attracted the ire of Russian officials. Local police reportedly said they found a gun and four bullet casings near her body. The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Politkovskaya had previously been jailed, forced into exile, and poisoned during her career covering seven years of the Second Chechen War that ended with Russian victory in April 2009.

Many will remember media images of a hospitalized Litvinenko, a 43-year-old naturalized British citizen, who had lost his hair from the lethal dose of radiation poisoning that a U.K. inquiry concluded was “probably approved” by Putin. He lived long enough to help the Scotland Yard trace his poisoning to a cup of tea in a London hotel. The ex-spy had been providing information to British and Spanish intelligence connecting the Russian mafia to senior Russian politicians. One of the main suspects in the murder died from COVID-19 last year.

Markelov, a 34-year-old top human rights lawyer, was shot in the back of the head in the center of Moscow by a masked gunman with a silencer-fitted pistol. This was following a press conference where he had denounced the early release of a Russian army officer convicted for the abduction and murder of a Chechen girl. Baburova, a 25-year-old freelance correspondent for the independent Russian biweekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta who had covered the press conference,, reportedly was killed trying to stop the gunman. In 2011, the Moscow City Court found two radical nationalists guilty on numerous charges related to the double murder.

Covering human rights in Russia is a dangerous job. Estemirova, a 50-year-old contributor to the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Kavkazsky Uzel, a news site focused on the Caucuses, was likely murdered for outstanding work spotlighting extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, and other human rights violations committed by local and regional authorities in Chechnya. Estemirova, who was also a consultant for Human Rights Watch, was herself abducted by four men and later shot. At least five journalists from Novaya Gazeta have been killed since 2000, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The 37-year-old lawyer died in Moscow’s notorious Butyrka prison where human rights monitors say he was held under torturous conditions that led to his death. American-born British hedge funder William Browder, a friend and client of Magnitsky’s, spearheaded a campaign that resulted in the Magnitsky Act, a bipartisan bill that President Barack Obama signed into law to deny visas and freeze assets of any individuals found culpable of Magnitsky’s murder.

In an incident similar to the Aug. 23 plane crash that killed Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine others, Polish President Kaczyński, 60, was killed when a Soviet-era Tu-154M plane crashed in Smolensk airport in Russia. A 2022 special commission report from the Polish government re-enforced previous allegations the crash was a Russian assassination plot. Ninety-five other people, including Polish First Lady Maria Helena Kaczyńska, 67, died in the crash. Poland is a NATO member, and tensions had been brewing between Warsaw and Moscow even before Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.

The 44-year-old Russian millionaire businessman was found lying on the street near his home following a romantic holiday in Paris with his Ukrainian mistress. He died shortly after the ambulance arrived. Speculation raged that his death was retribution for his involvement in exposing alleged fraud by Russian tax officials in which $230 million worth of taxes paid by Hermitage Capital, a hedge fund run by American-born British financier William Browder, was stolen. Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who was also involved in exposing the alleged fraud, died in prison under suspicious circumstances in 2009. A British investigation concluded that Perepilichny died of natural causes despite a horticulture expert claiming he found traces of a toxic plant in his stomach.

Despite using his media empire to help Putin win the 2000 Russian presidential election, Berezovsky fell out of favor with the Kremlin leader and fled to London. He helped to establish the Liberal Russia party, which fell apart amid an internal rift that led to Berezovsky’s ousting from the party and a number of contract killings of party leaders, including other people mentioned on this list: Sergei Yushenkov and Vladimir Golovlyov. Though the death of the 67-year-old oligarch was ruled a suicide by British investigators, Berezovsky’s fierce criticism of Putin, as well and the suspicious death of his aid, Nikolai Glushkov, has left open the question of whether his death was staged to look like a suicide.

The 55-year-old who briefly served as deputy prime minister under President Boris Yeltsin in 1998 was gunned down while working on a report alleging the Kremlin’s involvement in the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula in 2014. Media reports last year claimed Nemtsov, a fierce critic of Russia’s attack on Ukraine and an anti-corruption campaigner, had been shadowed numerous times by an agent linked to Russia’s powerful Federal Security Service prior to his murder. Five Chechen men were arrested and jailed for the murder, but the question of who ordered the assassination remains.

In April, 42-year-old Kara-Murza was handed one of the longest prison sentences for political dissidence in the post-Soviet era. The Russian-British former journalist was sentenced for treason and for spreading “false” information. Kara-Murza had spent years speaking out against Putin, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and the government’s hardline stance against dissent. He had served as an advisor to Boris Nemtsov, the liberal politician and former Russian deputy prime minister, who was gunned down in 2015 near the Kremlin.

The 72-year-old former Russian intelligence officer acted as a U.K. spy in the 1990s and early 2000s. He and his daughter Yulia, 38, survived an assassination attempt using a nerve agent developed in Soviet-era Russia. Two Russian military intelligence officers were charged in absentia for the attempted killing, but the Kremlin denied any involvement. The poison attack led to widespread condemnation and the expulsion of Russian diplomats and intelligence officers, including 60 operating in the United States.

In 2021, a Berlin court found Krasikov, 56, guilty of gunning down Khangoshvili using a silencer-equipped Glock handgun as he was walking to a mosque. The 40-year-old Georgian citizen served as an anti-Russian militia leader during the Second Chechen War from 2000 to 2004. Khangoshvili and his family survived numerous attempts on their lives and continued to receive threats after they relocated to Germany. Russia denied involvement in equipping Krasikov with a false identity, fake passport, and money to carry out the hit.

Like Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, anti-corruption activist and former Russian presidential hopeful Alexei Nalvani survived assassination by poisoning but is now serving time in prison on allegations widely believed to be politically motivated. The opposition leader had mobilized Russians in large numbers, posing a threat to Putin’s grip on the Kremlin. In a trial closed to the public and press, a court added 19 years to his sentence on extremist-related charges. Navalny was already serving nine years in a remote prison colony for parole violations, fraud, and contempt of court.

Ravil Maganov, the head of one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, died by falling from a sixth-story window of a hospital where he was being treated for a heart attack. The 67-year-old oligarch was one of numerous high-profile business executives to have met suspicious deaths since Russia invaded Ukraine. The official cause of death was suicide, but Reuters news agency reported at least six other Russian business executives, most with connections to the country’s energy sector, had died “suddenly in unclear circumstance” in the previous months. Maganov’s company, Lukoil, took a public stance against the war in Ukraine.

Less than four months after oil oligarch Ravil Maganov died by falling from the sixth floor of a hospital window, 65-year-old Antov died after falling from an Indian hotel window. This happened four days after another member of his entourage died from a stroke, leading local police to conclude Antov’s committed suicide because he was depressed over his friend’s death, according to the BBC. Antov established a meat processing plant in the city of Vladimir, east of Moscow, and was a well-known local figure. Months earlier, Antov denied he was the author of a message on his WhatsApp account criticizing Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The leader of the Wagner mercenary group and his lieutenants died in a suspicious Aug. 23 plane crash shortly after departing Moscow en route to St. Petersburg. Flight data and videos indicated there was at least one catastrophic midair incident followed by a rapid drop that spread debris over a wide area, evidence the plane did not suffer mechanical failure. Prigozhin, who rose from selling hotdogs on the street to forming a major private militia through his friendship with Putin, staged a brief mutiny in June that would suggest a motive for the Kremlin to take him out.