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Nikolai Glushkov, a Russian exile who was a close friend of a noted critic of President Vladimir Putin, has died from an "unexplained" cause in London, police say. The Metropolitan Police says that its counterterrorism unit is handling the case "because of associations that the man is believed to have had." Glushkov, 68, was a close friend of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, a prominent critic of the Kremlin who was found dead in 2013. At the time, an inquiry found he had hanged himself — but Glushkov publicly disputed the idea that his friend and former business ally would have...

1/26/2018: *NEW* FBI Vault release - Mikhail Lesin PDF - "The United States Attorney's Office District of Columbia (UAO-DC) and the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) have requested assistance in the homicide investigation of Mikhail Lesin, former Russian political figure, media executive, and an adviser to Vladamir Putin, the President of Russia. On Thursday, November 5, 2015, at approximately 11:32a.m., Lesin, with DOB: 07/11/1958, was found dead inside his hotel room, the Dupont Circle Hotel located at 1500 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. After an autopsy was performed, a Deputy Medical Examiner ruled that the cause of Lesin's death was blunt force...

As WikiLeaks continues to release emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta, team Clinton has attempted to deflect attention from the content, by again accusing Russia of “weaponizing” false information. After 14 separate batches leaks from Podesta’s email account, RT journalists simply doing their job and searching the WikiLeaks public database to uncover potentially damaging correspondence is enough for the Clinton campaign to continue claiming it is evidence of an alleged Russian conspiracy to interfere in the US elections

WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after authorities in Washington confirmed an autopsy shows blunt force trauma caused the death of a former aide to the Russian president, Russian officials say they've been requesting information about the probe without results. ... Lesin was a media adviser to Putin who helped found the English-language news service Russia Today.

On Thursday, more than four months later, one of the questions surrounding Mr. Lesin’s death was answered: The office of the chief medical examiner in Washington announced that he had not died of a heart attack, but rather of blunt force injuries to his head.

A Russian TV scion with strong links to President Vladimir Putin was killed by 'blunt force trauma to the head.' Now speculation is mounting that the Kremlin could have been involved in the death of Mikhail Lesin - the founder of station RT. According to reports Mr Lesin, who is said to have fallen out of favour with Moscow, became closely linked to the FBI and was widely believed to have become an informant.

Moscow and Tel Aviv are planning to sign a free trade agreement in the near future, Russian Deputy Agriculture Minister Sergey Levin told journalists on Friday. "Such decisions aim at maximizing cooperation between Russia and Israel in terms of agriculture and new technologies; creation of joint ventures, as well as the prospects of a free trade zone agreement which the government expects to sign with Israel as soon as possible," Levin said following Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich's meeting with Israeli businessmen. Israel's Minister of Agriculture Uri Ariel also expressed hopes the two countries would sign the agreement soon....

American lawmakers push bill to counter Putin message Russia has reorganized and intensified its international propaganda machine so effectively over the past decade that some Western lawmakers and diplomats say Washington now is badly losing a global messaging war to the increasingly modernized blitz of anti-U.S. content from Moscow-backed news operations. Leaders in the House and Senate have not put their full weight behind the Royce-Engel legislation, although it moved swiftly through the committee in May.

WASHINGTON — Mikhail Lesin, a former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin who helped found the English-language news service Russia Today, has been found dead in an upscale Washington hotel room. The Russian Embassy in Washington on Friday confirmed the death of Lesin, whose body was discovered Thursday. Russia Today reported on its website that Lesin, 57, died of a heart attack. Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Officer Sean Hickman said that officers were called to the Dupont Circle Hotel about 11:30 a.m. Thursday and found a man dead. Russian Embassy spokesman Yury Melnik confirmed that the man was Lesin. Russia...

A prominent Russian millionaire with high-level ties to the Kremlin has been found dead inside a Washington hotel, a Russian official and a senior U.S. official told ABC News. Mikhail Lesin, the former head of media affairs for the Russian government who's been accused of curtailing the country’s press freedoms, had been staying at Hotel Dupont when he was found Thursday, according to officials. It's unclear why the long-time adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Washington, but the Metropolitan Police Department is now investigating his death. On Thursday, U.S. authorities notified the Russian embassy in Washington that one...