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--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has been declared an enemy of the world and even a war criminal. But Putin's record of violence, deception, and a mysterious trail of death stretches back decades. In this special edition of Morning Wire, Ian Howarth joins us to discuss the stories of those who dared to stand up to Putin's regime in Russia.
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--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Ian, welcome.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Hi, Georgia.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: So, Ian, where do we even begin?
--:-- Ian Howarth: We'll start this particular story on August 20th, 2020, when the leading political opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, suddenly fell seriously ill while on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. After an emergency landing, Navalny was rushed to a hospital and put into a coma. Two days later, he was evacuated to a hospital in Germany. There, five certified labs from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed that a nerve agent had been used to poison Navalny.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Well, Germany is being absolutely clear about what happened to Russia's most high-profile opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. Have a listen to Angela Merkel earlier.
--:-- [Audio clip of Angela Merkel]
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: The presence of this poison was discovered without any doubt. Therefore, it is now certain that Alexei Navalny is the victim of a crime. The attempt was to silence him, and I condemn this.
--:-- Ian Howarth: After he recovered, Navalny said that his rival, Putin, was behind the poisoning. I have no other explanation for what happened, he said. Maybe it's the most toxic agent invented by the humans. So it's a new type of Novichok, which proves that, unfortunately, Putin has a developing new program of this chemical weapon, which is forbidden.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: But Navalny is far from the only person to fall victim after standing up in some way or another to the Russian regime. And in many ways, Navalny is one of the lucky ones, as he lived to tell his story.
--:-- Ian Howarth: But before we discuss those who weren't so fortunate, it's important to first ask, who is Vladimir Putin?
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in 1952, Vladimir Putin joined the Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, in 1975, where he quickly rose through the ranks.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Years later, as the Soviet Union collapsed, Putin returned to Russia and resigned from the KGB on the second day of a coup against then President Mikhail Gorbachev with Putin as he put it immediately deciding which side he was on. It just so happened that Putin chose the side that was going to win. Putin then pivoted to a career in politics quickly rising to the position of first deputy chief of President Yeltsin's presidential staff in 1998, and then director of the FSB, the Federal Security Service, the successor of the Soviet-era KGB, that same year.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: One year later, he was appointed as one of several deputy prime ministers, and then as acting prime minister of the Russian Federation by Yeltsin. Then Yeltsin announced that he wanted Putin as his successor, all on the same day. Just over four months later, Yeltsin suddenly and unexpectedly resigned and Putin became acting president of the Russian Federation before winning the election the following March.
--:-- Ian Howarth: In Russia today, the clear winner of the Russian presidential election, Vladimir Putin, began to establish the Putin era. Vladimir Putin, the career spy, talks about establishing what he calls a dictatorship of the law. Fight corrupt bureaucrats and strengthen the central government. And Putin has been in control of Russia ever since.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Right. I mean, Putin has been controlling Russia as long as I can personally remember, basically since my childhood.
--:-- Ian Howarth: How has he managed to hold power that long? Well, some believe that part of the answer to that question is a decades-long trail of violence that begins and ends in the Kremlin.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: As was the case in the Soviet Union under Yeltsin, dozens of journalists or political dissidents have been found dead during Putin's time in office.
--:-- Ian Howarth: In fact, so many Russian journalists have died, either in the field or from other causes, that an official day of remembrance, the Remembrance Day of Journalists Killed in the Line of Duty, is observed on December 15th every year.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: One of these journalists is a woman called Anna Politikovskaya. She wrote a book called Putin's Russia, in which she criticized the Putin regime and Putin personally for turning Russia into a police state.
--:-- Ian Howarth: In what was found to be a contract killing for $150,000, she was shot at point-blank range. Five men were convicted of her murder, but it was never revealed who paid for the hit.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Putin spoke at a funeral where he condemned her killing as well as her reporting.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Another journalist in this growing list is Natalia Estomarova. She was found in woods near her home after being abducted and shot in the head. No one was ever convicted of her murder.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Those who try and help these endangered journalists are also at risk. For example, a human rights lawyer called Stanislav Markalov represented journalists who criticized Putin, including Politkovskaya. He was shot outside the Kremlin.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Another journalist, Anastasia Babarova, was also shot when she tried to help Markolov. Yet another victim of a contract killing was Paul Klebnikov, who was the chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes. He investigated corruption in Russia, especially among the wealthy elite. He was murdered in a drive-by shooting.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: And then there are Putin's political rivals and opponents. Boris Nemtsov, another former deputy prime minister of Russia under Yeltsin, was an outspoken critic of Putin, accusing Putin of, among other things, being in the pocket of wealthy Russian oligarchs. He was shot four times in the back in the shadows of the Kremlin.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Putin took personal control of the investigation, with one theory being that this murder was the result of Islamic extremism. The killer, or killers, were never found.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Well, even in the early hours here in the Russian capital, people have come out to this scene where Boris Nemtsov was gunned down on Friday evening to pay their respects to one of Russia's leading opposition figures.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Another politician, Sergei Yushchenkov, was assassinated just hours after registering his political party, Liberal Russia, to run for office in the parliamentary elections in late 2003 Four people were convicted one of them being a former co of the party who denied his involvement and later attempted suicide in prison
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Right, and this is not even a comprehensive list, correct?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Exactly. There are so many more and some are as violent as they are mysterious.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: First, there's Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch nicknamed Rasputin, who assisters Putin in his rise to power. He fled to the United Kingdom after his relationship with Putin deteriorated. He later threatened to bring Putin down and openly accused Putin of having his opponents murdered.
--:-- Ian Howarth: He previously survived multiple assassination attempts, including a bombing which decapitated his chauffeur. While he was found dead in his home in England in what appeared to be a suicide, inside a locked bathroom with a legger chair around his neck.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: A murder mystery involving two governments and a Russian oligarch. The victim is this man, Boris Berezovsky. He fled to England after a fallout with the Russian government. The cause of that fallout, accusing the Kremlin of poisoning a former Russian spy with radioactive material.
--:-- Ian Howarth: That may be why a hazardous materials team was called to his home to help figure out the cause of his death, but nothing was found during the initial investigations. The coroner who investigated said he couldn't prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Berezovsky killed himself or was killed by someone else.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: According to one expert who specializes in these sorts of cases, the marks on Berezovsky's neck could not have come from a hanging. He believed that Berezovsky was instead strangled and then hung from the shower rail to mimic a suicide.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Next, there's Yuri Shagokokhin, yet another journalist who investigated corruption, organized crime in the Soviet Union and Russia. He died suddenly from a mysterious illness just days before he was due to travel to the United States to meet with the FBI.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: His medical records were apparently either lost or destroyed, but his symptoms appeared to match other cases of radioactive poisoning. Similar to Roman Sepov, an earlier confidant to Putin who died after he had a cup of tea at a local FSB office.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Sepov was hospitalized after experiencing vomiting, diarrhea, and crashing white blood cell count. He died 13 days later in St. Petersburg.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: And then there's perhaps the most famous case of suspected radioactive poisoning of all, the 2006 case involving Alexander Litvinenko.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Right, this was the famous poisoning incident in London. Yeah, it was also a cup of tea, laced with the deadly radioactive compound polonium-210, which caused the death of Litvinenko, a former FSB agent in London.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: An investigation by British authorities found that Litvinenko was poisoned by several FSB agents, with orders likely coming straight from the Kremlin.
--:-- Ian Howarth: It was the shocking murder of a prominent Russian dissident, seen here dying in his hospital bed, and an act of nuclear terrorism, say British officials, in the heart of London, just yards from the U.S. embassy.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Now a British investigation has found that the two Russian secret agents accused of the murder, quote, probably acted with the approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
--:-- Ian Howarth: The European Court of Human Rights found the Kremlin responsible for Litvinenko's death, while two of the accused FSB agents suggested that Litvinenko might have poisoned himself.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: And on his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Putin of ordering his assassination.
--:-- Ian Howarth: So are all of these just journalists or individuals who criticized Putin? Or is there a discernible pattern of who is targeted?
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Well, what's unsettling here is that there are a few common threads that tie so many of these cases together.
--:-- Ian Howarth: One clear example involves links to the now Russian Republic of the predominantly Muslim Chechnya and the claim that the Russian government was behind several key turning points in their own war on terror in the late 90s Litvinenko for example blamed the FSB for carrying out a series of bombings in 1999 that killed hundreds of civilians in Russia.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Russian authorities blamed these bombing attacks on Chechen warlords, and the bombings increased public support for the invasion of Chechnya that followed, all of which contributed to Putin's rise to power.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Putin went on to campaign on the issue, taking a hard line against Chechnya and vowing not to negotiate with terrorists. However, like Litvinenko, the liberal Russia leader Yushchenkov also believed that Russia orchestrated these attacks and claimed to be gathering evidence of such a conspiracy when he was killed.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Berezovsky, the man who died in a supposed suicide, was allied with both Litvinenko and a former Chechen warlord. Litvinenko also worked with Anna Politikovskaya, the first journalist we talked about in the show, on exposing another conspiracy, that the FSB were allegedly behind the infamous Moscow theater hostage crisis.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Politikovskaya, who investigated this story, also had links to others who had been killed. She was colleagues with Shaka Kokkin, who died following a sudden and mysterious illness, and Esther Marova, who was abducted and shot in the head. Esther Marova investigated human rights abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Then there's Klebnikov, who was murdered in a drive-by shooting. Putin's regime suggested that both Klebnikov and Politikovskaya were killed by an ethnic Chechen organized crime group, but others have blamed Russian government agencies for the hit.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Even years later, these deaths remain shrouded in mystery. Were they the result of random acts of violence? Were they carried out by organized crime groups or Chechen terrorists? Or do the bloody footprints lead straight to Moscow?
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Now, has Putin responded to any of these accusations?
--:-- Ian Howarth: He has, either by denying any involvement in these deaths or arguing that the same happens elsewhere. For example, during one press conference in 2021, Putin responded to these accusations by referring to the U.S. response to January 6th.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: You didn't answer my question, sir. If all of your political opponents are dead in prison, poisoned, doesn't that send a message that you do not want a fair political fight?
--:-- Ian Howarth: All right, about my opponents in jail or in prison. People went into U.S. Congress with political demands. 400 people are now facing criminal charges. They are facing prison terms of up to 20, maybe 25 years. They are called homegrown terrorists.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Putin has also denied involvement in specific deaths, such as Politkovskaya's murder. He condemned it as a hideous crime and claimed that her killing was actually more damaging to the Kremlin than her reporting.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Meanwhile, other experts say that while Putin isn't directly responsible for the deaths of other journalists during his term, he may have created the climate which allows these murders to happen.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: In reality, we'll never know who was behind these deaths and so many more. But one thing is for sure, speaking out against the Russian regime is a dangerous business.
--:-- Ian Howarth: It certainly seems so. And this gives us a clearer picture of who we're dealing with in Ukraine.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: Ian, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Thanks, Georgia.
--:-- Host: Georgia Howe: That's Daily Wire's Ian Howarth. And this was a special episode of Morning Wire. Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at dailywire.com slash subscribe. Use code Morning Wire to try a Reader's Pass membership and get your first month for only 99 cents.
