Symposium: To Kill a Russian Journalist
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2006
The murder of internationally renowned Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in early October 2006 was yet another troubling sign of Russia's retreat into its totalitarian past. Today Frontpage Symposium has gathered a distinguished panel of experts to discuss why Anna Politkovskaya was killed and what the tragic loss of her life symbolizes about the direction in which Vladimir Putin's Russia is heading.
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=1490
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'PUTIN'S RUSSIA' by Anna Politkovskaya:
http://www.amazon.com/PUTINS-RUSSIA-ANNA-POLITKOVSKAYA/dp/1843430509
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Nov 2015...
Vladimir Putin's media Svengali who was found dead in DC hotel was 'murdered for being an FBI informant'
- Millionaire Mikhail Lesin, 57, was found dead in $240-a-night in Washington DC last Friday [Nov 6, 2015] and police are investigating
- The pro-Putin 'propaganda channel' he set up, RT [Russia Today], claimed he 'had been suffering from a prolonged unidentified illness'
- But DC police have made no such finding
"Nicknamed the 'Bulldozer', Lesin was one of the key props of the Putin presidency, personally masterminding a wide-ranging media crackdown which has left the vast majority of Russian TV stations and newspapers obedient to the Kremlin."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315994/Vladimir-Putin-s-media-mastermind-dead-DC-hotel-murdered-FBI-informant-alive-claim-Russians.html#ixzz3rOUopg7Q
___________________________________"RT [Russia Today] has been called a propaganda outlet for the Russian government[10][11][12] and its foreign policy[10][11][13][14] by former Russian officials[15] and by news reporters,[16] including former RT reporters.[17][18][19]
It has also been accused of spreading disinformation.[20][21][22]
The United Kingdom media regulator Ofcom has threatened RT with sanctions because of repeated violations of its rules on impartiality.[23]
The network states that it offers a 'Russian perspective' on global events.[24]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_%28TV_network%29
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The following article is from last December (2014)
"Mikhail Lesin has stepped down as head of major state-controlled media holding Gazprom-Media, the company said late last week.
Gazprom-Media, whose holdings include independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, said Lesin's resignation was due to family reasons, Russian media reports said Friday.
The holding's board of directors will finalize his resignation at an upcoming meeting, Gazprom-Media was cited by Ekho Moskvy as saying. No replacement has been named.
Earlier, a flurry of reports of Lesin's imminent resignation appeared on Russian news wires, all based on undisclosed sources and giving divergent accounts of the motive.
Forbes Russia cited sources in the media and government as confirming the resignation, with one of the individuals claiming that the decision was made personally by President Vladimir Putin."
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/513690.html
_______________________________________________________Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB [Power]
Alexander Litvinenko & Yuri FelshtinskyThis book, co-authored by Alexander Litvinenko, the victim of the notorious 2006 London polonium poisoning, attempts to demonstrate that modern Russia's most fundamental problems do not result from the radical reforms of the liberal period of Yeltsin's terms as president, but from the open or clandestine resistance offered to these reforms by the Russian special services. It was they who unleashed the first and second Chechen wars, in order to divert Russia away from the path of democracy and towards dictatorship, militarism, and chauvinism.
The authors alleged that the Russian apartment bombings and other September 1999 terrorist acts were committed by the Federal Security Service. Litvinenko and Felshtinsky wrote that the bombings were a false flag operation intended to justify Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power.
Originally published in 2002
(223 pages)http://www.libertypublishinghouse.com/Blowing_up_Russia_E.aspx
___________________________________________________Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
___________________________________________________"Over the next six years, Litvinenko became an anti-Kremlin journalist, accusing the Russian government of abuses during their battles with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the FSB's alleged 1999 bombing of 300 people in explosions at apartments in Russia that was used to justify its second war against Chechnya.
He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB. He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/237045/long-awaited-investigation-alexander-v-litvinenkos-arnold-ahlert
___________________________________________________Litvinenko: A deadly trail of polonium [poisoned by Putin?...case now concluding]
BBC - Magazine ^ | July 28, 2015"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..."
"When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..."
Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry.
Dombey says there is only one place where it can be produced in the quantities used in the murder - a military nuclear reactor at the Avangard plant in the closed city of Sarov. Sarov was where Russia produced its first nuclear bomb in the days of Joseph Stalin. This is a clear link to the Russian state.
But why would the Russian state want him dead? ..."
It is clear that Alexander Litvinenko had powerful enemies in Russia. ..."
The first red line concerns a book he co-wrote called Blowing Up Russia about a terrorist attack in Moscow in September 1999. Chechen separatists were blamed.
"Litvinenko claimed that Russia's own security services carried out the attack to give Putin the cover to launch a new Chechen war. Some 300 people had died. ..."
His co-author, Felshtinsky, stands by their conclusions and says: "This [attack] helped Putin...the reaction of the population was we now have to have a strong leader. ..."
The inquiry will now hear secret evidence from intelligence agencies in special closed sessions. It will report back at the end of the year and, until then, the mystery will rumble on."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
___________________________________________________BBC, 27 July 2015
Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect 'cannot testify'
"UK officials believe Dmitry Kovtun and another man, Andrei Lugovoi, poisoned Mr Litvinenko in 2006, which they deny.
Mr Kovtun had been due to appear by videolink from Moscow on Monday, but said he had been unable to get permission from Russian authorities.
Mr Litvinenko's family lawyer said it seemed the case was being manipulated."
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33674469
___________________________________________________Jan 21 2016...
Vladimir Putin Likely Approved Murder of Alexander Litvinenko: Inquiry
by Alastair Jamieson and Alexey EremenkoLONDON - Russian President Vladimir Putin "probably" personally sanctioned the nuclear murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, a British judge ruled Thursday.
The dissident died in 2006 after drinking green tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel. Litvinenko had predicted that Russia would assassinate him and claimed on his deathbed that Putin likely ordered his killing.
After a six-month public inquiry, a British judge ruled that the one-time KGB agent was murdered on the orders of Russia's FSB security agency - and that the action was "probably approved" by Putin. ..."
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vladimir-putin-likely-approved-murder-alexander-litvinenko-inquiry-n500996
_______________________________________________________Russia's Director of Military Intelligence Dies Unexpectedly
The Wall Street Journal ^ | Jan. 4, 2016 | Paul SonneSince you need to subscribe or log-in to access the article at WSJ, here below is the same from another source...
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MOSCOW-The director of Russia's military intelligence agency has died unexpectedly, according to a short statement released Monday on the Kremlin website, which didn't specify the cause of his death.
Col. Gen. Igor Sergun had run the Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia's General Staff, known as the GRU, since late 2011. He was 58 years old.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in a statement released to the Interfax news agency, said Col. Gen. Sergun died suddenly on Sunday. Mr. Shoigu's statement offered no additional details.
The military intelligence chief joined the Soviet military in 1973 and became director of the secretive GRU and deputy chief of Russia's general staff in 2011, according to his official biography on the Russian Defense Ministry website. He served in military intelligence since 1984, according to the biography.
Last year, the U.S. and European Union sanctioned Col. Gen. Sergun after Russia annexed Crimea and backed a rebel uprising in east Ukraine.
Western and Ukrainian officials have accused the GRU, one of the most important parts of Russia's foreign intelligence apparatus, of playing a sizable role in the conflict in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the military intelligence chief for dedicating his life to the motherland in a message to his friends and relatives that the Kremlin press service released to Russian newswires on Monday.
"His colleagues and subordinates knew him as a real military officer, and experienced and competent commander, a person of great courage and a true patriot," Mr. Putin said. "They respected him for his professionalism, strength of character, honesty and integrity."
http://www.advfn.com/news_Russias-Director-of-Military-Intelligence-Dies_69876453.html
_______________________________________________________Mom of murdered Russian opposition leader: Putin will "kill you for that"
FoxNews.com, February 28, 2015The murder of prominent Putin critic Boris Nemstov in a gangland-style killing steps from the Kremlin came just weeks after the dissident told a magazine his mother worried the Russian leader would have him bumped off for his outspokenness.
" 'When will you stop cursing Putin? He'll kill you for that.' She was completely serious," Nemstov told Sobsesdnik earlier this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper added that the former Deputy Prime Minister under Russian president Boris Yeltsin expressed some worry about his safety but not as much as his mother.
-snip-
Nemtsov, 55, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting Friday near midnight as he walked on a bridge near the Kremlin with a female companion.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/28/russian-investigators-fail-to-mention-nemtsov-was-top-putin-critic.html
_______________________________________________________List of journalists killed in Russia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia#A_list_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia