As of: February 24, 2024, 10:16 a.m
By: Christian Stör
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Prigozhin, Nemtsov, Litvinenko, Politkovskaya - and now Navalny: The death of the Russian opposition politician joins a series of sometimes mysterious deaths behind which Russian state authorities are suspected.
A selection in pictures.
1 / 19Alexei Navalny was the most prominent figure in the Russian opposition for years.
Early on, the lawyer openly denounced President Vladimir Putin's power camp as a "party of crooks and thieves."
© Andrei Zhilin/afp
2 / 192013 he ran as a candidate for mayor in Moscow and came second with 27 percent of the vote.
He later organized mass protests across the country, but especially in Moscow.
In 2018, Navalny wanted to become president himself, but the judiciary put a stop to him.
He was repeatedly tried and convicted on fraud and theft charges.
© Kirill Kudryavtsev/afp
3 / 19In August 2020, Navalny collapsed while traveling and fell into a coma.
The reason was poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok, as studies at the Charité in Berlin proved.
© Instagram account @navalny/afp
4 / 19 In January 2021, Navalny returned to Russia, where he was tried again and sentenced to 19 years in a camp for alleged “extremism,” among other things.
In December 2023, he was relocated to a camp behind the Arctic Circle.
According to the judiciary, Navalny died in the prison camp on February 16, 2024.
The prison administration said he collapsed after walking in the courtyard.
© Vera Savina/afp
5 / 19Yevgeny Prigozhin was known in Russia as an unscrupulous entrepreneur with a criminal past.
He and Putin knew each other for a long time.
When the current president was still working in the St. Petersburg city administration, he is said to have stopped by Prigozhin's restaurant.
That is why Prigozhin, who was imprisoned for robbery for several years, was also known as “Putin’s cook”.
No one else in Russia dared to criticize like Prigozhin © ITAR-TASS/Imago
6 / 19For months, Yevgeny Prigozhin feuded with the military leadership in Moscow.
The head of the Russian private army, Wagner, repeatedly accused the Defense Ministry and the Army General Staff of lying to President Vladimir Putin.
Prigozhin also challenged Putin himself with an armed uprising by his private army.
© Sergey Pivovarov/Imago
7 / 19After his failed uprising, experts saw the mercenary chief as doomed to death.
Kremlin chief Putin had described the fighters for his ex-confidant as traitors.
In fact, two months after his mutiny against Russian state power, Prigozhin died in a plane crash in Russia in August 2023.
© Imago
8 / 19The opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was considered one of the most colorful and courageous politicians in Russia.
He made enemies primarily with his criticism of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's Ukraine policy.
He became the figurehead of the fragmented opposition and was seen as a supporter of Ukraine's move westward.
© Oxana Onipko/afp
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9 / 19Nemtsov was shot several times in the back from a car in February 2015.
The murder still raises many questions.
The EU repeatedly urged Russia to further investigate the case.
In 2017, a court in Moscow sentenced the alleged murderer and four accomplices from the North Caucasus to long prison terms.
Nemtsov's family complained that the masterminds were never really looked for.
© afp
10 / 19In the 1990s, Nemtsov made a name for himself as a liberal reformer in Russia.
President Boris Yeltsin (on the right in the picture) once brought him into the government in Moscow.
Nemtsov was temporarily considered a presidential candidate.
“I am liberal when it comes to economic issues, but for strong state power in politics,” he once said.
© TASS/afp
11 / 19The Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko died in November 2006 in London after an attack with the radioactive poison Polonium 210. According to an investigation report, the radiation poison is said to have been mixed into his tea in a London hotel.
Litvinenko languished for days under the eyes of the world.
From his hospital bed, he accused Putin of being behind the attack.
The British judiciary also sees it as proven that the trail leads to high political circles in Moscow.
Russia rejects this.
© Sergei Kaptilkin/dpa
12 / 19The journalist Anna Politkovskaya made a name for herself as a critic of the wars in Chechnya.
The opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta employee reported on war crimes committed by the Russian army and allied Chechen groups and spoke of a “dirty war.”
She often had to defend herself against threats.
On October 7, 2006, she was shot dead in front of her apartment in Moscow.
Politkovskaya's family suspects a political motive for the crime.
© Imago
13 / 19The series of sometimes mysterious deaths, for which Russian state authorities are suspected, is much longer.
The oligarch Boris Berezovsky (center) fell from grace after Putin came to power and fled to Great Britain.
On March 23, 2013, Berezovsky was found dead in the bathroom of his Ascot home.
© Shaun Curry/afp
14 / 19 In July 2016, the Russian exiled journalist Pavel Sheremet was killed in a car bomb in Kiev.
Sheremet became involved with pro-Western forces during the 2013/2014 Maidan protests in Kiev and later became an editor at the renowned internet portal Ukrainskaya Pravda.
© Dmytro Larin/afp
On 15 / 192017, the renegade Russian MP Denis Voronenkov was shot dead on the street in Kiev.
His case was never solved either.
© ITAR-TASS/Imago
16 / 19Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison in 2009 under unclear circumstances.
The lawyer, who said he had uncovered tax fraud, was allegedly beaten to death.
Medical help was refused.
© HO/Hermitage Capital Management/afp
17 / 19The journalist Anastasiya Baburova and the human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov were shot dead on the street in Moscow in 2009.
A right-wing extremist and an accomplice were sentenced to long prison sentences for the crime.
They had denied their guilt.
© ITAR-TASS/Imago
18 / 19Human rights activist Natalia Estemirova was found shot dead in the North Caucasus conflict region in 2009.
She had repeatedly incurred the wrath of those in power with reports of the disappearances of civilians in the area.
© Memorial/afp
19 / 19 One of the first fatalities was Sergei Yuschenkov.
The Duma deputy was shot dead in Moscow in April 2003.
Yushenkov was a thorn in the side of the state leadership, even though the politician had little power and influence.
© Roman Mukhamedzanov/Vremya Novos/afp