KILLER IN THE KREMLIN
How gangster Putin killed & jailed enemies to secure ‘easiest election ever’ as Russians head to polls for sham vote
An expert revealed what it would take for the succession of deaths of Putin's opponents to come to an end
VLADIMIR Putin's thirst for power knows no bounds, and his path to a win in Russia's 2024 election is littered with the bodies of his foes.
The Russian tyrant, 71, is all but certain to win another six-year term in the presidential vote that began today and will run until Sunday.
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A long list of influential Russians have died in murky circumstances throughout Putin's 24-year rule after opposing, criticising, or crossing the resentful despot.
The curious deaths - resulting from poisonings to shootings, and falls from windows to plane crashes - may have helped pave the way for the Russian dictator to remain in power until 2036.
ALEXEI NAVALNY
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Putin's most formidable opponent Alexei Navalny, 47, died just last month in the strict-regime Polar Wolf jail in the Russian Arctic while serving a 19-year sentence on trumped-up "extremism" charges.
It was alleged his body was found covered in bruises as Western leaders and members of Navalny's camp claimed he was "murdered" on the direct orders of Putin - an accusation the Kremlin rejects.
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Navalny was believed to have been killed with one punch to the heart after being forced to spend hours in freezing temperatures.
The brutal method was once a "hallmark of the KGB", according to the founder of human rights group Gulagu.net.
A UN human rights expert said on Monday that Moscow was responsible for Navalny's death as he was either killed in prison or died from detention conditions that amounted to torture, Reuters reports.
Dr Stephen Hall, an expert in Russian and Post-Soviet politics, said the decision that led to Navalny's death may have stemmed from Putin wanting to assert his dominance in national politics.
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He told the Sun: "We know that Putin is going to win this election. We can say that with almost absolute certainty now.
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"In terms of how the deaths of Yevgeny Prigozhin and Alexei Navalny play in ... Navalny was never going to be able to stand.
"He was in jail. Why Navalny died, will probably never be known. Why that decision was made, will probably never be known.
"If anything, in part it's given liberal Russians a sense of no hope.
"There's nothing they can do, they cannot change the situation. And that possibly was one of the reasons why Navalny died."
Navalny's former chief of staff was attacked in Lithuania on Tuesday; the country's intelligence agency pinned the blame on Russia.
Navalny’s spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said in a social media post: "Leonid Volkov has just been attacked outside his house.
"Someone broke a car window and sprayed tear gas in his eyes, after which the attacker started hitting Leonid with a hammer."
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PUBLIC IMAGE
The alleged murders of Putin's opponents helped to solidify the president's image, in a majority of Russians' minds, as a tough leader who will do what is necessary to stand up to the "meddling" West.
Seventy-five per cent of Russians were last month said to be ready to vote for the tyrant, according to a state pollster and reported by Reuters.
More than 20 Putin critics have been killed or died in mysterious circumstances since the ageing ruler came to power in 1999, and many other enemies of the Kremlin have been lucky to survive assassination attempts.
They were each engaged in activities Putin deemed unforgivable, such as investigating the alleged crimes of Russian intelligence services or criticising his wars in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine.
He has denied the accusations of wrongdoing.
Why Navalny died, will probably never be known. ... If anything, in part it's given liberal Russians a sense of no hope.
Dr Stephen Hall
Dr Hall said he believes the succession of deaths of Putin's opponents will end only when Putin is removed from power.
He told The Sun: "I would say it ends if Putin himself is removed and that's why the West… needs to declare Putin illegitimate.
"This would increase Western support for Ukraine.
"It would also increase Western government support led by the British, who I think should be the first to declare Putin illegitimate, to support the Russian diaspora which includes the opposition."
Dr Hall remains "optimistic" that Putin may soon be removed from power.
He added: "It could happen tomorrow. I suspect it won't, I suspect this is a long-term thing, but it could happen very suddenly, and Russia does have a history of this."
YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN
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Endlessly vocal Putin critic and the head of the Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62, died in August last year in a fireball private jet crash, according to Russia's investigative committee.
He was a close confidant of Putin before he launched a rebellion in June last year, vowing to "punish" Russia for a deadly missile attack on one of his training camps in eastern Ukraine.
Putin blasted the uprising as a "mortal blow" to Russia and "a knife in the back of our people".
Prigozhin died two months to the day after he launched the abortive mutiny targeting Russia's military leaders which left Putin humiliated.
SERGEI SKRIPAL
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In 2018, former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok in his adopted hometown of Salisbury, along with his daughter Yulia.
They were discovered unconscious on a bench in the Wiltshire city and spent weeks critically ill in hospital but miraculously survived.
Putin described Skripal as "scum" and "a traitor to the motherland".
BORIS NEMTSOV
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Another rival of the Russian despot, Boris Nemtsov, was gunned down in a gangland-style killing on a bridge near the Kremlin in 2015 when he was 55.
The reformist regional governor and deputy prime minister had helped lead protests against Putin's return to the presidency from prime ministership in 2012 and was staunchly opposed to Russia's aggression against Ukraine in 2014.
SUDDEN DEATHS
Two other prominent Russians - Sergei Magnitsky and Natalya Estemirova - met untimely deaths in 2009.
Whistleblower Magnitsky made the mistake of reporting an alleged £185million fraud by Russian tax officials and was jailed on similar charges.
He died behind bars aged 37 and his cause of death was deemed to be toxic shock and heart failure brought on by pancreatitis, which had been diagnosed by a prison doctor but left untreated.
The Kremlin's own human rights council said he was badly beaten before his death.
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The body of 51-year-old Estemirova, a renowned human rights activist, was discovered four months earlier to the day with bullet wounds to her head and chest, hours after she was abducted from her home.
She had been investigating hundreds of suspected rights abuses in Chechnya, including kidnapping and murder when she died.
ALEXANDER LITVINENKO
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Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, 44, was killed in London in 2006 after criticising Putin and fleeing to Britain with his family.
Russia was found by the European Court of Human Rights in 2021 to have been responsible for his "assassination" in the UK after a British inquiry concluded Putin had "probably" given the go-ahead.
Litvinenko died an agonising death after drinking a tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 during a meeting in a hotel with two Russians.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
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Investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, 48, was also killed in 2006 - on October 7, Putin's birthday.
She was shot dead in a lift in her block of flats in Moscow but was also allegedly poisoned before her murder.
Five men were sentenced to prison, including two to life, in 2014 for their involvement - but whoever paid the £150,000 for the contract killing remains "unknown".
MORE OF PUTIN'S VICTIMS
Liberal Russian politician Sergei Yushenkov, 52, was assassinated in April 2003 mere hours after registering his political party to participate in the parliamentary elections to be held in December of the same year.
He was the third politician to be gunned down in Moscow in seven months, shot several times in the chest at his apartment block.
Others who have died in mysterious circumstances during Putin's rule include oligarch Boris Berezovsky, 67, who was found in the bathroom of his home with a scarf around his neck and tied to the shower rail, and former Putin adviser Mikhail Lesin, 57, who died of "blunt force trauma" in a hotel room.
Ex-deputy director of Russia's national airline Aeroflot Nikolai Glushkov, 68, was strangled with a dog lead at his home in London.
In December 2022, Russian tycoon and politician Pavel Antov, 65, who had criticised Putin's war in Ukraine on WhatsApp, was said to have "fallen from a hotel terrace" in India.
Ravil Maganov, 67 and the head of Russia's second-largest oil producer Lukoil, also "fell from a window" in 2022 after calling for "the soonest termination of the armed conflict".
Former Lukoil chief Alexander Subbotin, 43, died the same year amid rumours he suffered a heart attack when he was treated with toad venom for a hangover.
Businessman Dan Rapoport, 52, was found dead in front of a high-rise apartment building in Washington DC after he publicly condemned Russia's invasion and emphasised his support for Ukraine.
And Yuri Voronov, 61, who had links to energy giant Gazprom, was found dead in a pool with a gunshot wound to his head while Vladislav Avayev, 51, ex-Gazprombank chief, and Sergei Protosenya, 55, a boss at Russian gas giant Novatek, died in alleged murder-suicides.
Many others who have spoken out against Putin's government have been penalised by way of life-altering prison sentences.
Sixty-year-old former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for one, spent a decade in prison after challenging the despot early in his rule.
But the harshest sentence so far was dealt to opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, who was jailed in April last year for 25 years.
He had made comments that were critical of the Kremlin and its military operation in Ukraine and was jailed on charges of treason, spreading "false" information about the Russian army, and being affiliated with an "undesirable organisation".
Kara-Murza is alleged to have survived two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017 and now suffers from serious related health problems.
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Famous author and Boris Akunin, real name Grigory Chkhartishvili, 67, was added to a list of "terrorists and extremists" by Moscow in January for his views on the war and now lives in self-imposed exile in Europe.
The Russian justice ministry accused him of spreading "false information".
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