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Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky has never made any secret of his loathing for President Vladimir Putin, but in an interview in his London exile the controversial tycoon went one step further with a vow to mount a coup. "President Putin violates the constitution and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today, and that includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working at," the oligarch, looking vibrant despite five years in self-imposed exile, told AFP at his Piccadilly office. For the past 18 months, "we have been preparing to take power by force in...

LONDON (Reuters) - Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky said he is planning a revolution in Russia to topple President Vladimir Putin, in comments published on Friday. "We need to use force to change this regime," Berezovsky, who has received asylum in Britain, told the Guardian newspaper. "It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure." Asked if he was fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct." Berezovsky, a vocal critic of Putin, said he was in contact with members of Russia's political elite. He said these people -- who he...

Russian espionage in UK 'at Cold War level' By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent Last Updated: 1:11am BST 08/09/2007 Russia's espionage operation in Britain is operating at the level of the Cold War and involves about half of the staff accredited to its diplomatic missions in London, it has been claimed. Boris Berezovsky: an outspoken critic of Putin Their tasks range from seeking military and commercial secrets to monitoring Russian dissidents based in London, most notably Boris Berezovsky, the billionaire and outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin. When Britain expelled four Russian diplomats in July - responding to Moscow's failure to...

Oligarch Boris Berezovsky may have been killed by British spies from MI5 or MI6 to stop him leaking state secrets to the Russians, a leading supporter of Vladimir Putin argued today. Fears in the West that the tycoon was planning to make peace with the president and end his 13-year UK exile may have led to him being assassinated, Kremlin insider Sergei Markov has said. After falling out with Putin in 2000, the 67-year-old fled to Britain where he was later given political asylum.

Murder was not ruled out today after an inquest heard that exiled Russian Boris Berezovsky was found lying in his bathroom with a ligature around his neck. A piece of the same material around his throat was tied on to the shower rail above him, indicating he apparently hanged from the rail. But police told a coroner they still cannot rule out murder. Det Insp Mark Bissell said: “The results of the postmortem found that the cause of death was consistent with hanging. "The pathologist has found nothing to indicate a sign of struggle or third party involvement.” He added...

Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch found lying on his bathroom floor with a ligature around his neck, was in good spirits the night before his died and was looking forward to a holiday to Israel, according to his girlfriend. Katerina Sabirova, 23, said she did not believe he had killed himself and said that he sounded “better than usual” when she spoke to him. She said they were due to go to the Dead Sea three days later. A post-mortem conducted last month found that Mr Berezovsky's death was "consistent with hanging" and that there were no signs of violence...

On Thursday, more than four months later, one of the questions surrounding Mr. Lesin’s death was answered: The office of the chief medical examiner in Washington announced that he had not died of a heart attack, but rather of blunt force injuries to his head.

Police in Poland are investigating the murder of a Russian artist and vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin. Polish prosecutors said Robert K, known as the artist Semyon Skrepetsky, was shot dead on Monday morning in the Polish town of Biała Podlaska, about 40km (25 miles) from the Belarusian border. The 44-year-old was shot five times in the head, chest and back in a car park in the town, located about 600m (2,000ft) from the Belarusian consulate. Semyon Skrepetsky was the pseudonym used by Robert Kuzovkov. He was known for his caricatures of politicians, including Putin, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko...

Former vice-president of the Russian concern YUKOS Mikhail Rogachev has been found dead in Moscow . This was reported by the Russian propaganda Telegram channel Mash “One of the top YUKOS executives, Mikhail Rogachev, fell out of a window and died in the center of Moscow. He had previously committed suicide,” the report says. It is noted that Rogachev was 64 years old. According to Mash, he had a severe form of oncology. “He left a suicide note and committed suicide in the morning on Protopopovsky Lane,” the Telegram channel reported.

Several reports have suggested that ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad may have been poisoned in Moscow. According to these reports, he fell ill on Sunday afternoon. Assad has been under the protection of Russian President Vladimir Putin since fleeing Syria in December 2024. A social media account, General SVR, operated by a former Russian spy, stated that Assad sought medical assistance after experiencing coughing and choking. The account suggested that there was reason to believe that it was an assassination attempt. On the social media account, it has been claimed that Bashar al-Assad called the security guards after he was...

Former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Jessica Aber, who was found dead at the age of 43 by Virginia authorities on Saturday, was at the helm of high-profile investigations into intelligence leaks, allegations of war crimes against Russian-linked individuals and people suspected of providing sensitive U.S. technology to Moscow before she stepped down at the start of the year. Why It Matters Aber, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, resigned in January after President Donald Trump was inaugurated. She had risen to lead one of the most important federal prosecutor's offices and roughly 300 prosecutors, civil...

Somebody new going to fall out of a window in Moscow? Seems the czar of Russia is not well regarded by the boyars he holds in his closest circle, and now the entire world now knows about it. That's what we read in the Daily Mail:Moscow's high society has been rocked by a scandal after a pair of prominent Vladimir Putin cronies were allegedly heard insulting the Russian despot.Oligarch and former Russian senator Farkhad Akhmedov and high-profile Moscow music producer Iosif Prigozhin, both supposedly supporters of Putin, have been accused of calling him 'Satan' and a 'dwarf'.An audio recording of...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed that Andriy Parubiy, a former Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council who was implicated in the tragic events at the Trade Unions House in Odessa on May 2, 2014, was shot dead in Lviv. Zelenskiy announced that Parubiy was killed in Lviv and assured that all necessary resources have been mobilized to investigate and identify the shooter. The incident took place at approximately 10:35 a.m. local time. As Parubiy was walking along a street, a gunman disguised as a delivery courier approached him and fired multiple shots at close range before fleeing the...

A prominent Ukrainian politician and former parliament speaker has been shot dead in western Ukraine, officials said, as a search was under way to find the attacker. Andriy Parubiy, who also previously served as secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, was killed in the city of Lviv on Saturday.The Prosecutor General’s office said a gunman had fired several shots at Parubiy, killing him “on the spot”. The attacker fled, and a manhunt was launched, it said.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the killing as a “horrendous murder” and offered his condolences to Parubiy’s family and loved ones.“All necessary forces...

In the last 30 months, an estimated 17 Russian officials, politicians, businessmen and leading figures in the arts have died after falling from high windows. The window on the fifth floor of a building in the historic city of Petrozavodsk in northwestern Russia was wide open when the figure of a man appeared briefly, before plunging to the ground. This was followed by Putin enforcing a "blanket ban" on social media apps from enemy countries. The mangled body of former police colonel, Artur Pryakhin, head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in the republic of Karelia, was hauled off to the...

Dmitry Kovtun is dead, say reports. Mr Kovtun led an unusual life: from wannabe porn star, rubbish collector, waiter and alcoholic, to one of two Russian agents implicated in the radioactive poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. What dreams are made of.

LONDON — Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian oligarch and long-time opponent of the Kremlin, died at his home in Britain on Saturday aged 67 in unexplained circumstances, officials said. British police launched a full investigation into the death at the mansion in the well-heeled commuter town of Ascot, near London, saying it was "currently being treated as unexplained". Berezovsky's lawyer Alexander Dobrovinsky told Russian television the tycoon had committed suicide after suffering from weeks of depression over his huge debts, although another friend strongly denied this. Berezovsky was one of handful of businessmen who made a fortune out of the...

A NUCLEAR armageddon will see "Russians go to heaven and the West banished to hell", a Kremlin propagandist has said in a bizarre TV rant. Top Putin crony Andrey Lugovoy - who is accused of assassinating former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko on British soil - said the dictator could "end human history" with his hypersonic nuclear arsenal. -snip- The propagandist then went on to say Putin would destroy the entire world and "end the human race" in case of a nuclear war. And that the West will go to hell. He added: "[Nuke war] will be the end of human...

A tape apparently recorded by murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko a year before he was poisoned has revealed he was digging up links between Vladimir Putin and one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. A Telegraph investigation uncovered the audio recording, in which the dissident claims from beyond the grave that Russia’s president had a “good relationship” with Semion Mogilevich - a Ukrainian crime boss who was on the FBI's most wanted list and whom Mr Litvinenko believed was selling weapons to al-Qaeda. The apparent recording of Mr Litvinenko is published for the first time ahead of a public inquiry...

THE Kremlin has been accused of covering up the death of a sacked Russian minister after signs of torture were allegedly found on his body just 24 hours before his apparent suicide. Roman Starovoit, who was Vladimir Putin's transport minister for less than a year, was dismissed from his post on July 7 - just hours before he was found dead. Telegram channels with links to the Russian security forces reported Starovoit's cause of death as suicide - claiming the minister was found dead with gunshot wounds. However, an independent Russian media outlet now reports that he had been beaten...