Wednesday , October 16 2024

The list is long, other leaders critical of Putin have also died

The news of the death of opposition leader and staunch critic of Russian President Putin, Alexei Navalny, has spread across the world.

After Navalny's death, questions are once again being raised on Putin's working style. Because the list of deaths of those who raised their voice against Putin is very long.

Before Navalny's death, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had a private army in Russia, had died in a mysterious plane crash. Prigozhin, once considered Putin's close confidante, tried to rebel against Putin and had to leave the world in his last days.

Pavel Antonov, another Putin critic, died suspiciously in a hotel in the Indian state of Orissa. He fell from the third floor of the hotel. Two days before his death, Vladimir Budanov, a member of Antonov's party, had also died under suspicious circumstances in the same hotel. However, it was claimed that the police did not find anything suspicious in the investigation.

Ravil Magnov, chairman of the oil company Lukoil, who criticized Russia's invasion of Ukraine, died in 2022 after falling from a hospital window. It was said that he had committed suicide. However, there are still questions regarding Magnov's death.

Big Russian businessman Dan Rapoport left Russia after differences with Putin. He often posted in support of Ukraine on social media. His body was found in a flat in Washington in August 2022. The police have denied that this is a case of murder.

Former Russian parliament member Denis Nikolaich Voronkov lost the parliamentary elections in 2016 and left Russia for Ukraine. Denis criticized Putin and his foreign policy while sitting in Ukraine. In March 2017, when he was coming out of a hotel, an assailant shot him dead. The attacker was also killed in retaliation by Dennis' bodyguard.

In 2015, Putin's rival Boris Nemtsov was shot dead. Boris was the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in the 1990s and was considered a strong contender for the post of President of Russia. However, Boris Nemtsov was marginalized after Putin became president in 2000. Later Boris started protesting against Putin. He condemned Russia's attack on Crimea in 2014.

He was assassinated the same year. The five attackers arrested in this case are in jail but it is not yet clear who ordered them to kill Boris.