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He really is dead. Today Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried in his hometown of St. Petersburg. There were conflicting reports leading up to the ceremony about where and when it would take place. It seems pretty clear that the Kremlin wanted this to be a very low-key affair with few people allowed so that no images or video showing long lines of mourners would wind up in the media. (snip) Even after his murder, Putin is obviously worried about his remaining supporters. To be clear, I think Prigozhin was a ghoul rounding up desperate criminals and sending them to die at...

The founder of a pop group whose song became an anthem during anti-war protests in Russia has died by drowning aged 34 on Sunday. Dima Nova—whose given name was Dmitry Svirgunov—founded the popular electronic group Cream Soda, and criticized Russian President Vladmir Putin's alleged $1.3 billion mansion in the song "Aqua Disco." The song was often sung at protests before and in the early days of Russia's military invasion of Ukraine and the protests quickly became known as "Aqua Disco Parties." Nova fell through ice while crossing Russia's Volga river in the Yaroslavl region, north east of Moscow, according to...

A former Russian police general who had been in charge of cracking down on protesters has been found dead in an apparent suicide following his dismissal by President Vladimir Putin, state media reported. Major General Vladimir Makarov, 72, had helped oversee Russia's crackdown on opposition activists in his role as deputy chief of the Russian police's anti-extremism unit. Putin dismissed Makarov, who was described as “once the main organizer of the ‘hunt’ for opposition activists and inconvenient journalists,” in late January. Police found Makarov’s body at his suburban home northwest of Moscow on Monday, the state-run TASS news agency reported...

Belarus's foreign minister Vladimir Makei was poisoned in a Kremlin sting operation, extraordinary new reports have claimed. The veteran diplomat and former spy died suddenly yesterday amid claims he was in secret contact with the West concerning the war in Ukraine and preventing Belarus from being incorporated into Russia by Vladimir Putin. A video shows Makei, 64, looking healthy on a Belarus military cargo plane last week shortly before he died. He wasn't known to suffer from any chronic illness. -snip- Makei was this week due to attend an Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting in Poland...

Vladimir Makei 'passed away suddenly', Belarusian state media reported today They gave no cause for Makei's death or any explanation of the circumstances Makei, 64, was due to meet Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov tomorrow He was then set to travel to Poland to meet a host of Western diplomats Some opposition figures in Russia and Belarus have posited the Belarusian security service could well have been involved in Makei's death Belarus's long-standing foreign minister has died suddenly, the state news agency Belta reported on Saturday, just days before he was due in Poland to meet key Western officials. 'Foreign Minister...

ONE of Vladimir Putin’s mobilisation chiefs has been found dead in “suspicious” circumstances prompting a murder investigation. The body of Lt-Col Roman Malyk, 49, was discovered near the fence of his home as the Russian tyrant announced his chaotic mobilization was being called off. (snip) Police investigating the death of Malyk have opened a murder probe but have not ruled out suicide. Some reports said Putin's enlistment chief died from hanging. His “suspicious” death comes after a spate of attacks on mobilisation offices across Russia.

A high-ranking Russian law official believed to be the authority behind attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, who took part in the notorious Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr during the presidential campaign, has been killed in a mysterious helicopter crash. Deputy prosecutor-general Saak Karapetyan - a long-time ally of President Vladimir Putin - died last night when his AS-350 came down in Kostroma region northeast of Moscow during an unauthorized flight. Karapetyan had been in charge of Russian criminal investigations into the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK, and the deaths of Putin critic...

A Russian deputy attorney general who is thought to have directed attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya in her efforts abroad on behalf of Russia's government died Wednesday night in a helicopter crash. The Daily Beast reports that Albertovich Karapetyan died Wedesday night in an unauthorized helicopter flight that ended in a crash near the village of Vonyshevo, northeast of Moscow. Karapetyan was reportedly behind Veselnitskaya's global efforts to lobby lawmakers to overturn anti-corruption acts such as the U.S. Magnitsky Act, a law similar to others around the world passed in honor of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died during the course of...

Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko has died after being shot at his home in Kiev, according to police. Mr Babchenko, 41, was reportedly found bleeding in their apartment block by his wife and died in an ambulance. After writing about a crashed Russian military plane in 2016, Mr Babchenko said he received death threats and left his home country. He previously worked as a presenter on Ukrainian channel ATR TV, and has written about his military service. Ukrainian law enforcement confirmed his death in a Facebook post, written in Ukrainian. Kiev police chief Andriy Kryshchenko also told the media they suspected...

Nikolai Glushkov, a Russian exile who was a close friend of a noted critic of President Vladimir Putin, has died from an "unexplained" cause in London, police say. The Metropolitan Police says that its counterterrorism unit is handling the case "because of associations that the man is believed to have had." Glushkov, 68, was a close friend of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a prominent critic of the Kremlin who was found dead in 2013. At the time, an inquiry found he had hanged himself — but Glushkov publicly disputed the idea that his friend and former business ally would have...

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, who was convicted by Russia of betraying agents to British intelligence, was critically ill on Monday after exposure to an unidentified substance in Britain, two sources close to the investigation told Reuters. British police said two people, a 66-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman, had been found unconscious on a bench in a shopping center on Sunday in the southern English city of Salisbury after exposure to the unknown substance. Both are critically ill in intensive care. Police declared a major incident.

The radiation expert who discovered the poison that killed Alexander Litvinenko "committed suicide" by stabbing himself repeatedly with two knives months after a trip to Russia, a coroner ruled. Matthew Puncher, 46, bled to death at his home after receiving multiple stab wounds across his body from two kitchen knives, an inquest heard. A pathologist said he could not completely exclude the possibility that someone else had been involved in the death of the father, but came to the conclusion that the injuries were self-inflicted.

TEHRAN, Iran – A Russian man working for a nuclear company in Iran has been found dead after disappearing 18 days earlier, Iranian media and a Russian spokeswoman said Thursday. According to the state-owned Iran newspaper, the man's frozen body was found Tuesday at a recreational area in a mountainous area just outside of Tehran, where nighttime temperatures dip well below

Before his mysterious death, Kommersant journalist Ivan Safronov was on the verge of reporting a story about sensitive arms deals with Syria and Iran despite warnings that he would be prosecuted for disclosing classified information, it was reported Tuesday. Kommersant reported that Safronov planned to file a story on the sale of Iskander surface-to-surface missiles and SU-30 fighters to Syria, and S-300 air defense systems to Iran. The newspaper added that the story was sure to have prompted a Federal Security Service, or FSB, investigation into disclosure of classified information. The United States and Israel have lodged strong protests when...

A military correspondent for Russia's top business daily has died after falling out of a window, and some media alleged Monday that he might have been killed for his critical reporting. Ivan Safronov, the military affairs writer for Kommersant, died Friday after falling from a fifth-story window in the stairwell of his apartment building in Moscow, officials said. His body was found by neighbors shortly after the fall. With prosecutors investigating the death, Kommersant and some other media suggested foul play.

<p>French police are investigating a car crash involving a billionaire Russian parliamentarian who was critically injured when his Ferrari slammed into a tree on the Mediterranean seafront in Nice.</p> <p>Suleyman Kerimov, 40, a far rightwing member of the State Duma from Dagestan, was said by police to have lost control of the car as he sped on Saturday in rain along the Promenade des Anglais, the Riviera’s most celebrated thoroughfare.</p>

LONDON - A former KGB agent turned Kremlin critic who was poisoned three weeks ago was moved into intensive care Monday after his condition deteriorated, and his doctor said the toxin has attacked his bone marrow. Prominent Russian exiles claimed Litvinenko was poisoned at the behest of the Kremlin... Thallium causes hair loss and interferes with the cardiovascular and nervous systems, attacking the vital organs. Litvinenko's white cell count is down to nearly zero, said Dr. John Henry, a clinical toxicologist treating him. "It shows his bone marrow has been attacked and that he is susceptible to infection," Litvinenko, who...

Doctors treating a former Russian Prime Minister for a grave illness believe he was deliberately poisoned, an aide has revealed.Yegor Gaidar is being treated in a Moscow hospital after becoming ill on a trip to Ireland a week ago. "Doctors don't see a natural reason for the poisoning and they have not been able to detect any natural substance known to them in Gaidar's body," said aide Valery Natarov. "So obviously we're talking about poisoning (and) it was not natural poisoning." He said Mr Gaidar's condition could not have been the result of food poisoning. The news follows the death...

Alexander Litvinenko, who died horribly in a London hospital on Thursday, is only the latest critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet a brutal death. On Oct. 7, another critic, the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in the lobby of her Moscow apartment building. Two years earlier, in July 2004, the U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov was murdered as he emerged from the offices of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine. These killings and many others are linked to the deepest mystery of the Russian state. The mystery is the rise of Vladimir Putin. In 1998, Vladimir Putin was...

Poisoned Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died on Thursday in an intensive care ward, London's University College Hospital said. Litvinenko, a fierce critic of the Russian government, suffered a rapid deterioration in his health on Thursday, but doctors still were unable to determine the cause of his death, a spokesman said in a statement.