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Peter1469
03-04-2017, 08:26 AM
Mysterious Circumstances Surrounding Russian Murders, Deaths (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/melik-kaylan/mysterious-circumstances-surrounding-russian-murders-deaths?utm_source=World+Affairs+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e327e89280-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_03_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f83b38c5c7-e327e89280-294709645)
This is a blog post on World Affairs. It links to the relevant articles that the writer relies on (he wrote at least one of them).

There are lots of rumors concerning the recent deaths of Russian diplomats and spies. Is there a link, or at least the most recent ones, to former MI6 agent Christopher Steele and the Trump 'dossier?'


When Vitaly Churkin, Russia's top United Nations envoy, collapsed suddenly from an apparent heart failure recently, it triggered widespread and predictable murmuring about possible foul play. With so many sudden and mysterious deaths at the upper levels of the Russosphere during the Putin years, chiefly among his opponents, it's no surprise that rumors abound even when a stalwart loyalist like Churkin dies. The actual causes of many of the untimely deaths, like those of Alexander Litvinenko and Boris Nemtsov cases, however, have been considerably less mysterious. Clear assassinations of that kind naturally leave a cloud of suspicion over seemingly innocent but abrupt deaths—and, there have been an inordinate number. Indeed, I noted in a recent column (http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/melik-kaylan/mysterious-circumstances-surrounding-russian-murders-deaths?utm_source=World+Affairs+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e327e89280-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_03_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f83b38c5c7-e327e89280-294709645#2c082f2a28e5) that five prominent Kremlin-linked deaths have occurred in the UK—including Litvinenko, and Alexander Perepilichny whose demise seemed inexplicable until a mysterious Himalayan poison was found in his stomach tissue as this article (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/the-poison-flower/508736/?utm_source=twb) in The Atlantic explains. All of this might also explain why former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, compiler of the notorious Trump 'dossier', went underground in his own country.

The Atlantic article goes into detail about how the KGB, over the decades, operated a laboratory to develop secret poisons for use against political enemies. We know from history books that Joseph Stalin personally ordered such executions; he liked to be closely informed. The question is, in our day, does Putin work the same way? Is he a Stalinesque level of monster? Does the Kremlin dispatch stealthy assassins to stalk and murder enemies of the state around the world with Putin fully in the know? From what I've learned in two decades of covering Russian shenanigans—I suspect not but, like a mafia godfather, it seems certain that an authoritarian like Putin who exercises strict control over the state apparatus, is well aware of the hits and allows them to take place rather in the manner of Henry IV who, referring to his nemesis Thomas Becket, asked “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?”. But worse. More like the mafia requiring proof of allegiance, as in a public act of self-incrimination or a sacrifice offered to the leader.


Consider the fates of Litvinenko and Nemtsov. The former, a one-time FSB officer, got into trouble for blowing the whistle on the dirty deeds of his country's domestic secret services. Litvinenko then fled to Britain in 2000 and died there in 2006 of radioactive polonium poisoning. His real first-hand knowledge of Russian dark ops derived from his access in the 1990's though he continued to make fresh allegations against the Kremlin up to his last days. He asserted that Putin had ordered the death of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. He also asserted that Putin was a pedophile. In later years, his accusations grew wilder but his evidence thinner. In effect, rightly or wrongly, his revelations no longer stuck. So why would Putin bother to mount elaborate plots to eliminate Litvinenko just as his credibility ebbed?

An interesting case that many of these deaths were really assassinations.