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Russian President Vladimir Putin's opponents continue to disappear in a series of strange and sudden deaths, and his main domestic political opponent, Alexei Navalny, died after a sudden collapse, according to Russian authorities.
“In general, Russians as a culture don’t believe in coincidences. But in this particular case, there is a reason why many analysts believe that Russian intelligence services are likely behind it, even if we are unlikely to be able to clarify exactly how Navalny died,” said Rebekah Koffler , a military intelligence strategic analyst and author of “Putin’s Playbook,” told Fox News Digital.
“There is a special intelligence craft dating back to 1920 that the Soviets used to eliminate the so-called enemies of the state,” Koffler said. “The Soviets, and now the Russians, are masters at covering their tracks and making the assassination appear as if it were a natural or accidental death.”
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“Wet Affairs, meaning the shedding of blood, is a doctrine of targeted killings, including poisonings, executions with a shot in the back of the head, forced suicides – such as throwing oneself out of a window – and the explosion of a hidden mini-bomb.” in a box of chocolates…and other invented methods,” Koffler explained.
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People who died under mysterious circumstances during Vladimir Putin's rule. (Getty Images/East2West/Fox News Digital)
Koffler argued that Putin was not afraid to suggest that the deaths of opposition figures – be it a direct rival like Navalny or an ally who challenged his authority like Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin – were at his behest because “he wants to that we know his agents are “behind the operation.”
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“He is sending us subtle signals that can be easily picked up by those who understand who Putin is and know the signature tactics of Russian intelligence,” Koffler said. “For example, afterwards [GRU officer] While Sergei Skripal was being poisoned, Putin said in an interview with the Financial Times in June 2019: “Treason is the greatest crime in the world and traitors must be punished.”
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“In 2010, when asked whether he had ever had to sign an order to liquidate enemies of the fatherland abroad, Putin replied: “Traitors will kick the bucket on their own initiative – whatever they get in return.” “On the 30 pieces of silver , which they have been given, will suffocate them,” she added.
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Navalny died in prison last week after collapsing in what prison officials said was a case of “sudden death syndrome.” But an anonymous paramedic who claimed to work for a morgue told independent news agency Novaya Gazeta Europe that he saw bruises on the body consistent with a “sudden death syndrome” person being restrained during a seizure.
Prigozhin, who died when his plane suddenly exploded, killing him and everyone on board, and Navalny are two of the most prominent examples of Putin's opponents experiencing sudden demise, but there were many examples of this during his reign.
A location after the crash of a private jet allegedly carrying Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin and other passengers in Russia's northwestern Tver region, Russia, on August 23, 2023. (Wagner Telegram Account/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Boris Nemtsov, another major domestic rival, died shortly before an opposition rally in 2015. A gunman shot Nemtsov four times from a passing car as he crossed a bridge in front of the Kremlin. Putin expressed his condolences and called the death a “provocation” before ordering authorities to investigate.
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Authorities eventually arrested five men who were sentenced to 11 and 20 years in prison, respectively, for Nemtsov's murder. However, the Russian government consistently refused to classify Nemtsov's death as a political assassination.
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Anna Politkovskaya, an American-Russian journalist and human rights activist, was shot dead in the elevator of her Moscow home in 2006. She regularly criticized the Kremlin, particularly regarding its Chechnya policy. An investigation into her death failed to determine who ordered her death, and investigators dismissed the involvement of a Moscow-backed Ramzan Kadyrov, who eventually took power as head of the Chechen Republic.
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Kadyrov also denied any involvement in the death of journalist Natalya Estemirova, who was kidnapped and killed outside her home in Grozny in 2008. Chechnya reinstated Russia's federal rule in 2009 and remained a staunch Russian ally, supporting Putin's war against Ukraine and supplying troops.
People gather at a memorial for the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the Monument to the Victims of Political Repression in Saint Petersburg on February 16, 2024. (Olga Maltseva/AFP via Getty Images)
More recently, a series of bizarre accidents have left several high-ranking Russian businessmen dead after speaking out against Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including Ravil Maganov, chief executive of oil giant Lukoil, who fell from a hospital window. Lukoil said Maganov died of illness, but Russian media and investigators determined he fell from a sixth-floor window.
Pavel Antov, known as Russia's “Sausage King” and local politician, also fell out of a window at the end of 2022. Authorities found him dead outside the Sai International Hotel in Rayagada, India, after celebrating his 65th birthday just days earlier. One of Antov's traveling companions also died in the hotel.
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At least eight other Russian oligarchs died under strange circumstances in the first year of the invasion, and international investigators suspected the deaths were staged suicides or assassinations in retaliation for their opposition to the invasion or ties to corruption at the Russian gas company Gazprom could.
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Koffler told Fox News Digital that when the killings are carried out by the Secret Service, they will always be “deliberately done in secret so that no investigator can detect any wrongdoing.”
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“They are usually viewed as 'tragic accidents.' [which is] also part of the teaching,” she added.