Edit: These politicians there should be wearing bullet-proof vests, the guy probably thought he was relatively safe though he did apparently fear for his life. I’d think around the Kremlin, maybe they thought, no one would carry out a brazen attack. In the UK, perhaps other places, the streets largely have CCTV everywhere.
Even a one-time co-hort, Radio Free Europe says in fact, a mentor to Putin showed up dead 15 years ago. His name Sobchak:
“ST. PETERSBURG — Few municipal leaders are credited with changing the path of history. Anatoly Sobchak, the late reformist mayor of Russia’s northern capital and political mentor to a young Vladimir Putin, is different.
....
During a February 19, 2000, campaign trip to Russia’s western exclave of Kaliningrad, the 62-year-old Sobchak died in a hotel room, apparently of a heart attack. But media reports later suggested he had been poisoned. Suspicions were further raised when the two former KGB agents traveling with Sobchak were later shot dead in what appeared to be professional hits.”
http://www.rferl.org/content/questions-remain-about-death-of-man-who-made-putin/26867539.html