Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways
And this was tallied through Wednesday. Let's also not forget the man who was poisoned twice and lived to tell about it...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?utm_term=.86f7ecd7e05a
Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways
By David Filipov March 23 at 7:43 PM
MOSCOW – Not everyone who has a quarrel with Russian President Vladimir Putin dies in violent or suspicious circumstances — far from it. But enough loud critics of Putin's policies have been murdered that Thursday's daylight shooting of a Russian who sought asylum in Ukraine has led to speculation of Kremlin involvement.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the shooting in Kiev of Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian Communist Party member who began sharply criticizing Putin after fleeing Russia in 2016, an "act of state terrorism by Russia."
That drew a sharp rebuke from Putin's spokesman, who called the accusation "absurd." Throughout the years, the Kremlin has always dismissed the notion of political killings with scorn.
But Putin’s critics couldn’t help drawing parallels with the unexplained deaths of other Kremlin foes. "I have an impression — I hope it’s only an impression — that the practice of killing political opponents has started spreading in Russia," said Gennady Gudkov, a former parliamentarian and ex-security services officer, to the Moscow Times.
Here are some outspoken critics of Putin who were killed or died mysteriously.
Boris Nemtsov, 2015
Police officers detain Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, center, during a rally against President Vladimir Putin's government in St. Petersburg, Russia, Nov. 25, 2007. (Sergey Ponomarev/AP)
In the 1990s, Nemtsov was a political star of post-Soviet Russia’s "young reformers." He became deputy prime minister and was, for a while, seen as possible presidential material — but it was Putin who succeeded former president Boris Yeltsin in 2000. Nemtsov publicly supported the choice, but he grew increasingly critical as Putin rolled back civil liberties and was eventually pushed to the margins of Russian political life. Nemstov led massive street rallies in protest of the 2011 parliamentary election results and wrote reports on official corruption. He also was arrested several times as the Kremlin cracked down on opposition rallies. In Feb. 2015, just hours after urging the public to join a march against Russia's military involvement in Ukraine, Nemtsov was shot four times in the back by an unknown assailant within view of the Kremlin. Putin took "personal control" of the investigation into Nemtsov’s murder, but the killer remains at large.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/?utm_term=.86f7ecd7e05a
