Politically Motivated Assassinations

A Kurdish-Syrian politician and civil engineer, serving as Secretary General of the Future Syria Party.   She was brutally murdered by Turkish-backed militia who invaded the Syrian territories in order to "cleanse" dissidents.  

Hevrin Khalef was deliberately killed on Turkish orders along with 9 other civilians. Their deaths were during Operation Peace Spring which began on 9 October 2019 during the first days of the Turkish-backed military operation.  The blame for the onslaught, the Turkish President, Erdogan who ordered the attack after Donald Trump pulled out US forces (his lone decision which was not agreed by with White House officials who consult the president on military matters) and resulted in the desertion of our Kurdish allies.  The same allies who assisted the United States to capture Isis members and who continue to imprison them.  

The opening left by US military withdrawal, permitted Turkish-backed militia advancement giving them an opening after more than 8 years of conflict with relative peace.

Hevrin Khalaf was an advocate for a pluralistic nation reform and was an advocate for tolerance.  

She was murdered on October 12, 2019.

Journalist for the Washington Post. He had traveled to the Saudia Arabian consulate to process paperwork enabling him to remarry. While there he was detained and murdered.  The exact cause of his death is unknown; however, it was confirmed that he was dismembered and his body was never found. 

As reported, December 22, 2019 by MSN via the Washington Post, a trial was held in Istanbul which had been ongoing and that lasted well over a year.  There was limited access to the proceedings with no coverage permitted.  Anyone allowed attendance was advised to not discuss the proceedings.  

Although the CIA had in fact concluded last year that his death was ordered by the Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, the trial cleared the Crown Prince with any wrongdoing and instead sentenced to death 5 men who were convicted of the crime.  

Jamal Khashoggi challenged the Saudi Arabian government writing papers and articles strongly against the Crown Prince and the Saudi Arabian King.  It for his dissidence that he was assassinated on October 2, 2018.

Ukrainian civil rights and anti-corruption activist.  She was a vocal crusader against corruption within both the local law enforcement agencies as well as within the Ukrainian government.  She was also a part of the Euromaidan uprising against then president Viktor Yanukovych, who was removed from power in 2014 during the Ukrainian Revolution. 

Handziuk was targeted and attacked with sulfuric acid outside her home n July 31, 2018.  

She was taken to the hospital surviving the initial attack.  She was treated for months having Sulphur burns covering almost half of her body where she endured multiple painful surgeries.  

She was outspoken during her treatment and discussed whom she believed was behind her attackers.  As reported in the EU-OCS; an online media resource documenting crime, political news along with security and corruption news in Europe -  From her hospital bed she named Kherson Regional Council, Vladislav Manger, who had wanted to silence her.  She had made a documentary that Manger filed a lawsuit against and lost in addition to other "run ins" of reported corruption.

Kateryna Handziuk succumbed to her injuries while ongoing treatment and died on November 4, 2018.

Former British Army officer who co-founded the White Helmets - a civil defense group in Syria. A first-responder group that trains local volunteers to rescue victims of war. It has more than 3,000 volunteers, who rescue victims during bombings from fallen buildings, rubble and the like. Russian intelligence launched a comprehensive campaign to discredit the White Helmets, branding them an al-Qaida front, or an intelligence operation – often at the same time. Le Mesurier was for them the ringleader who orchestrated it all. He died November 11, 2019.  He was found below his apartment having apparently “fallen” from a floor above.

A Russian politician opposed to the government of Vladimir Putin.   The killing happened the day before Nemtsov was due to lead the opposition march Vesna - a street demonstration organized to protest against economic conditions in Russia and the war in Ukraine. An unknown assailant fired seven or eight shots; four of them hit Nemtsov in the head, heart, liver and stomach, killing him almost instantly. 

Murdered on February 27, 2015 hours after making a public appeal to support a march against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

A former executive of the Russian oil company Rosneft and intelligence agent for both the KGB and, the FSB—was found dead in the back of his car in Moscow on December 26, 2016.  Erovinkin, who was a key liaison between Rosneft chief Igor Sechin and Putin, was suspected of helping Steele compile his 35-page dossier but this was denied by reporter, Luke Harding, stating Steele was adamant he was not his contact.

Russian journalist who wrote about corruption, the war in Ukraine and in Syria.  He had also investigated political scandals, including allegations made by the escort, Nastya Rybka in a video that was posted by a Russia opposition leader.  This is the same Rybka who claimed she had information concerning the 2016 election scandal involving billionaire - Oleg Deripaska - that implicated him and others.  While in a Thailand prison, serving a one year sentence on separate charges, she requested asylum in the USA in exchange for the information.   

According to BBC News, On April 12, 2018, Maxim Borodin was found critically injured five stories below his apartment and rushed to the local hospital.  He died three days later on April 15, 2018 from the injuries he sustained from "falling" from the balcony of his apartment.

The investigation led to no arrests and little information was ascertained except for a comment by a neighbor who told police that Borodin had told him there were men on his balcony, but then later told him it had been a training exercise.  The door to his apartment was locked from the inside according to the investigators.

Russian journalist who report controversial news or anti-government sentiment risk their lives in doing so.  

According to Politifact, 34 journalist have been murdered since 2000 alone from the time Vladimir Putin became President of Russia. They also report that there has been no proof that the orders came from the Russian government, but that the political strife in Russia as well as the rapid decline of press freedom innuendo more culpability.

"This avarice~  Strikes deeper, grows with more pernicious root." - William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Vladimir Putin was appointed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin in August of 1999. His career began, climbing the ranks of the KGB from the time he joined in 1975 as an intelligent officer until retiring in 1991 as a Lieutenant Colonel.  Within a few short years - in 1996 - he became the first Director of the FSB, Federal Security Service (an extension of the former KGB in ideology and function for the Russian government.) Putin spent 25 years of his life in Russians internal security & counterintelligence service.  

Just after Putin's appointment in August 1999 - the following month of September - three cities in Russia came under terrorist attack. Attacks; however, that no terrorists groups ever claimed. 

The explosions occurred in the cities of Buynaksk (Sept 4, 1999), Moscow (Sept 9 & 13, 1999) & Volgodonsk (Sept 16, 1999).  There were 300 deaths and countless more injuries.  Putin condemned those responsible and swore revenge.

On September 22, 1999 an attempted bombing was interrupted and foiled.  Although the terrorism was blamed on Chechen's -  they denied responsibility.  When three FSB agents were arrested by the police - the FSB reported that this was a drill for preparedness and that the bomb was not real.

The FSB was further implicated when a few sources who suggested that is was in fact the FSB who committed all the apartment bombings - were either arrested, imprisoned or murdered.

President Yeltsin resigned in December of 1999.  Putin became President of Russia.

"According to historians, the bombings were coordinated by the Russian state security services to bring Putin into the presidency."  Wikipedia

On September 11, 2001, one of the largest terrorist attacks in the United States took the lives of 2,977 Americans.

More to come

A former officer of the FSB secret service who specialized in counter terrorism and organized crime.  He  defected to the United Kingdom and became a British naturalized citizen. He believed he was poisoned by a contact he met with at the Millennium Hotel in London.  The meeting took place on November 1, 2006 at the hotels sushi bar.  It was purported to be so the contact, "Mario" could provide a list of persons responsible for a recent assassination in Russia. (Anna Politkovskaya)  Within an hour of the meeting Litvinenko began to feel ill.  The toxicology report suggested the poison to be thallium which is a toxic metal.  Although being treated at the hospital and given a 50/50 chance of survival, Alexander Litvinenko died on November 23, 2006.

As reported  by Alan Colwell of the New York Times in the October 19, 2006 article Former KGB agent and Kremlin foe poisoned?  - 

"In 2003 he published a book, "The FSB Blows up Russia," accusing the Russian secret service of orchestrating a wave of explosions in apartment buildings in 1999 that helped provoke the second Chechen war."

Litvinenko had accused FSB superiors of the murder of the Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky; he accussed the Russian Secret Service of the staged Apartment Bombings in September 1999 as mentioned above; and he accused Vladimir Putin of the October 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Before his death, Litvinenko said: "You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world, Mr. Putin, will reverberate in your ears for the rest of your life."

The New York Times posted an article December 15, 2004 about the poisoning of a Ukrainian presidential candidate, Viktor A. Yushchenko, and Russians use of poison as a state sanctioned tool.  In the article Litvinenko is quoted as saying this in regard to the FSB use of poisons.  

"The view inside our agency was that poison is just a weapon, like a pistol," said Alexander V. Litvinenko, who served in the K.G.B. and its Russian successor, the Federal Security Service, from 1988 to 1999 and now lives in London. "It's not seen that way in the West, but it was just viewed as an ordinary tool."

Mr. Litvinenko said a secret K.G.B. laboratory in Moscow, still operated by the Federal Security Service, which is known by its Russian initials F.S.B., specializes in the study of poisons."

Foreshadowing his own demise only two short years later.

A high-profile Russian journalist with the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, she was shot and killed in the elevator of her apartment complex on October 7, 2006.

This was not the first attempt on her life. 

On September 1, 2004, the same year she published her book entitled Putin's Russia, she lost consciousness on a flight and upon waking the nurse whispered in her ear, ""My dear, they tried to poison you."  She believed her tea was poisoned by FSB agents on her flight. 

 The New York Times article by Scott Shane "Poison's Use as Political Tool: Ukraine Is Not Exceptional" covered multiple victims of FSB sanctioned assassinations by poison while reporting  Viktor A. Yushchenko dioxin poisoning who survived, but was horribly disfigured.

Her book may be purchased here - Putins Russia.

Outspoken Chechen Youtuber who spoke out against Putin and the Chechin Regime that he backs.  

February 2020 - Found with multiple stab wounds and his throat slit last week.

He had been living in Belgium and had been under police protection from multiple death threats he had received.

He was found murdered gruesomely in a French hotel room.

More to come.