All the 'Enemies of Russia' Who 'Fell Out of Windows'
Air travel is safer than ever these days... that is unless you're the leader of the Wagner Group; a collection of private mercenaries that staged a coup against Russian president Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. That man, former Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, found his private jet spiraling to its demise this past Wednesday while on route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, killing Prigozhin and all nine other people on board.
The "accident" should come as no surprise, since Putin has made untimely death an unfortunate commonality between his political opponents and critics alike for decades.
Video of the plane crash went viral, sparking memes and reactions to Putin chalking up another hit to his impressive score. In honor of Yevgeny Prigozhin, here are ten other Putin opposers who just happened to perish in unfortunate circumstances.
2. Yevgeny Prigozhin
Yevgeny Prigozhin was the leader of the Wagner Group; a collection of private mercenaries that staged a coup against Russian president Vladimir Putin for his invasion of Ukraine. His private jet "crashed" on Wednesday, killing him and nine other people.
3. Sergei Yushenkov
On a fateful day in 2003, Sergei Yushenkov was greeted by a bullet outside of his Moscow home. Yushenkov believed Putin was responsible for a 1999 apartment bombing, had just registered the Liberal Russia movement as a political party.
4. Denis Voronenkov
Denis Voronenkov was a Putin-critical member of the Russian parliament, before smartly electing to flee to Ukraine for his safety. Not that it mattered, he was shot in Kyiv in 2017.
5. Ravil Maganov
Just last year, Lukoil executive Ravil Maganov criticized Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He then fell out of a window in Moscow. Whoops! Lukoil later claimed he died from an illness.
6. Boris Berezovsky
Boris Berezovsky smartly fled to England after the Russian oligarch stopped seeing eye to eye with Vladimir. Except instead of thanking his lucky stars for his head, he continued to talk trash; even threatening to bring Putin down by force. In 2013, he was found dead with a ligature around his neck. Although it was initially ruled a suicide, the true cause of death was never found.
7. Alexander Litvinenko
Alexander Litvinenko was a Russian intelligence agent who would go on to accuse Putin of corruption later in his career. In a 2006 meeting with Russian spies, he drank poisoned tea, and died three weeks later.
8. Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya's book "Putin's Russia," called out the Russian president for his authoritarian government. She was killed by five contracted men in 2006. Multiple other people were later killed fighting for justice over her death.
9. Mikhail Lesin
Mikhail Lesin was the former Kremlin press minister and an advisor to Putin, before he was killed by blunt force trauma to the head while in Washington D.C. in 2015. Some people believe Russian oligarchs were worried he would talk to the FBI.
10. Pavel Antov
Criticizing the war in Ukraine is definitely a no-no for high ranking Russians, as the businessman turned politician Pavel Antov found out the hard way. Just last December, Antov took a tumble out of a hotel window in India. And all over a WhatsApp message.
11. Natalia Estemirova
Natalia Estemirova was investigating Russia's prosecution of its war in Chechnya in 2009, when she was kidnapped and shot. Surprise surprise, European courts later ruled that Russia did not effectively investigate the murder.
12. Boris Nemtsov
Boris Nemtsov was an anti-Putin liberal Russian politician and physicist, who protested the 2011 parliamentary election results. He was shot in Moscow in 2015.
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