Never Lean Out of a Russian Window

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The elite of America's business and political communities can normally expect to live full and productive lives and then pass away at some ripe old age in the lap of extreme luxury.  But in other countries a life of wealth and privilege does not always end so well - especially in Russia.  Russia's wealthiest and most powerful individuals seem to have a penchant for dying suddenly, especially from swallowing poisons and mysterious toxins - and from falling out of the windows of tall buildings.

The modern history of poisonings in Russia goes back a century ago when the fledgling Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was still under the control of V.I. Lenin.   Lenin had his people set up a secret lab to develop special poisons that would be colorless and odorless and easy to administer - and most importantly, would love no traces of having been used.   Ironically, rumors persist to this day that Lenin himself died as a result of a poisoning ordered by his eventual successor, Joe Stalin.

In 2004 Ukrainian politician Viktor Yuschenko, who was running for president of Ukraine and favored a policy of Ukraine integrating into Europe and joining NATO, was poisoned with a large amount of dioxin - an act attributed by many to the Russian government which supported his opponent in the presidential election.

Two years later, in 2006, Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former officer in the Russian FSB security office who had taken asylum in England was poisoned and killed in a London sushi bar.  The substance used to kill Litvinenko was later determined to be polonium-210, a radioactive material.   A British government inquiry ten years later ruled that there was "strong circumstantial evidence of Russian state responsibility in the poisoning and death of Litvinenko.  

A former Russian colonel who had been convicted by a Russian court of treason - and his daughter - had fled to England where they were poisoned in 2018.  Sergi Scribal and his daughter, Yulia, eventually recovered from that attack which occurred in the English town of Salisbury.

Then, in August off 2020, Alexi Navalny, a political opposition leader to Russian President Vladimir Putin, became ill on a domestic flight in Siberia and was later determined to have been poisoned.  After being hospitalized in Germany, Navalny eventually returned to Moscow to continue his work in opposition to Putin, and he was promptly arrested on a parole violation and is currently serving time in a Russian prison.

And there have been other incidents of poisonings as well.  Sometimes they have been successful, and other times they have failed.

Falling out of a high window, however, is not so likely to fail.

Last week on Christmas Eve, Pavel Antov, a Russian politician who had been critical of Vlad Putin regarding the invasion of Ukraine, fell from his 3rd story hotel window in the city of Odisha, India, where he had been taking part in a tour.  Two days earlier a friend of his and fellow Russian tourist had been found dead in his room in the same hotel form a "heart attack."  The friend, Vladimir Bidenov, was found in bed surrounded by empty wine bottles.

In September of this year, Ravil Maganov, the chairman of a Russian oil company that had criticized the invasion of Ukraine, died in a fall from a 6th floor hospital window.  

In December of 2021, Yegor Prosvirnin, the founder of two nationalist websites in Russia, died when he fell out of the window of a residential building in the center of Moscow.  He had been openly talking about a possible civil war in Russia and the collapse of the Russian Federation.

Two months earlier, on October 19, 2021, a Russian diplomat died in Berlin when he fell from a window at the Russian Embassy.   German Intelligence sources reported that they believed the man had been an undercover agent with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).  The victim was also thought to be the son of the deputy director of the FSB.

Alexander Kagansky, a Russian scientist who was working on a COVID-19 vaccine was found dead with a stab wound after falling from a high-rise apartment in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.

Two Russian doctors who had protested working conditions during the height of the pandemic died when they fell from hospital windows in April and May of 2020.

And finally, a Latvian-American investment banker who had reportedly amassed a fortune working in Russia and was a known critic of Vladimir Putin, fell to his death from a luxury apartment in Washington, DC, in July of 2020.    The banker, Dan Rapoport, was a former business partner of Segri Tkachenko, who had fallen to his death from a high-rise apartment in Moscow three years earlier.

Russian "justice" seems to be swift and lacking in an appeal process.  For American tourists heading to Russia, especially if they have ever spoken unkindly of Vladimir Putin or critically of the war in Ukraine, it might be best to stay in hotel rooms located on the ground floor - and only consume food and drinks from snack machines.  Just sayin' . . .