Russian Oligarch and Sharp Critic of Putin Dies Near London (Berezovsky)

[Brickbat]

Source: New York Times

MOSCOW — Boris A. Berezovsky, once the richest and most powerful of the so-called oligarchs who dominated post-Soviet Russia, and a close ally of Boris N. Yeltsin who helped install Vladimir V. Putin as president but later exiled himself to London after a bitter falling out with the Kremlin, died Saturday.

He was 67 and lived near London, where last year he lost what was billed as the largest private lawsuit in history — an epic tug-of-war over $5.1 billion with another Russian oligarch, Roman A. Abramovich, in which legal and other costs were estimated to be about $250 million.

Mr. Berezovsky’s death was first reported in a post on Facebook by his son-in-law Egor Schuppe, and confirmed by Alexander Dobrovinsky, a lawyer who had represented him.

Mr. Dobrovinsky, who runs a law firm with offices in Moscow and London, wrote in Russian on his own Facebook page: “Just got a call from London. Boris Berezovsky has committed suicide. The man was complex. An act of desperation? Impossible to live poor? A series of blows? I am afraid that no one will know the truth.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/world/europe/boris-a-berezovsky-a-putin-critic-dies-at-67.html?hp&_r=0

[Octafish]

1. When he had money, he was a friend of Neil Bush...

Did business together, too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2082945

[Diclotican]

2. Brickbat

Brickbat

It sound to me like FSB is up to old habits - "wet operations" as the old KGB explained it as - where opponents of the regime was killed of - to silence them - and to make a statement to others - regardless of where you hide - "we" can and will get to you and kill you off.. After all - the old KGB had a whole division working aorund the clock trying to kill of opponents of the then Soviet union... And they managed many times, to do that to - kill them who had been opponents of the Sovjet Union... Specially in the 1960s and 1970s they was rather bussy killing dissents and opponents - even if they was protected by the western intelligence systems...

Diclotican

[Paul E Ester]

7. Sounds like they have a "Kill list"

As long as there's a committee reviewing who gets added to the list, it should be ok.

[Tx4obama]

3. Kick n/t

[Locut0s]

4. Will be interesting to see is any traces of polonium turn up. Not sure they would be stupid enough..

Not sure if they would be stupid enough to use that again. If it is an assassination and not death by natural causes they probably used some other hard to trace method.

[Selatius]

5. The old KGB and the current FSB never really tried too hard to hide their handiwork.

If they wanted you dead and you died, chances are everybody found out rather quickly it was by their hands. They didn't hide the appearance of who they wanted dead.

One could call it stupidity to leave a calling card. I believe over there they saw it as a warning to any person, billionaire oligarch or not, not to fool with the power of the security apparatchiks and Putin himself.

[cosmicone]

6. Amazing ...

on this forum, the KGB (FSB) is guilty until proven innocent.

Perhaps it was a genuine suicide over a lost fortune? Are we not even prepared to wait until some evidence comes in from an autopsy?

[Paul E Ester]

8. "on this forum, the KGB (FSB) is guilty until proven innocent. "

Yes and they should be, murderous scum that they are.

Regarding the suicide, it is possible. I guess the guy was broke.

[Paul E Ester]

9. Russia's secret service carried out a series of deadly apartment bombings.

Media tycoon Boris Berezovsky says he will ask the EU to investigate allegations that Russia's secret service carried out a series of deadly apartment bombings.

The former Kremlin insider who fell from grace after President Vladimir Putin's election said the 1999 attacks, which killed more than 300 people, "had no equivalent or precedent in Russia."

Berezovsky told a news conference in London on Tuesday that Putin was aware of the attacks. He said his information was from former FSB intelligence agents, investigative journalists and explosives experts.

The evidence has been compiled to form the basis of a documentary and a book, which Berezovsky unveiled at the press conference.

Sergei Yushenkov, who with Berezovsky chairs the political movement Liberal Russia, said the group would ask the Council of Europe to investigate the explosions.

Berezovsky said the investigation should look at the actions of Putin, who headed the FSB, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, until August 1999. At the time of the bombings Putin was prime minister.

http://articles.cnn.com/2002-03-05/world/russia.blasts_1_president-vladimir-putin-ryazan-fsb?_s=PM:WORLD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings

A similar bomb was found and defused in the Russian city of Ryazan on 22 September 1999. Two days later Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Patrushev announced that the Ryazan incident had been a training exercise.[2] This has led to the support of theories by Alexander Litvinenko (later murdered by an unusual radioactive isotope) and Anna Politkovskaya that the apartment bombings were carried out by the Russian secret service FSB (formerly KGB).