The United Kingdom was hit with a targeted nerve agent attack on March 4, sending a former Russian spy and his daughter into the hospital in critical condition. It has caused an international outrage, as Russia has a long history of brazen attacks and assassinations on foreign soil, though this one has been more blatant than many. The British government has begun to respond, starting by ousting 23 Russian diplomats from the country and has threatened to seize the luxury real estate properties of Russian oligarchs.
Eyes have now turned to the recent death of Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov (pictured above) in London, found dead on March 12 in his house. He was 68. The police have ruled his death a homicide, and a pathologist report stated that the cause of death was “compression to the neck.” The investigation is still ongoing.
Glushkov used to be the deputy director of Aeroflot, a Russian airline that is one of the oldest airlines in the world. He was also the financial manager of AvtoVAZ, a Russian car manufacturer. In 1999 he went to prison for five years for money laundering, and would be again sentenced in 2006 for fraud. He left the country and went to the UK, joining the ranks of many Russians who had fled for various reasons.
He was reported to have had close, personal connections with Boris Berezovsky — a man who was known for his open, vocal criticisms regarding Putin, who lived in exile after he was asked by the Kremlin to come in for questioning. He was later convicted of fraud and embezzlement, though he never returned to his home country. After two alleged assassination attempts and the assassinations of his other Russian exile associate Alexander Litvinenko (of poloium 210 infamy) and Georgian Badri Patarkatsishvili, Berezovsky was found in his home, an alleged suicide by hanging.
And now like Berezovsky, Litvinenko, Patarkatsishvili and almost Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Glushkov has found his way to a mysterious death.
Skripal had once said that he was afraid the Russian government would come for him. “They will try to shoot me in the back of the head, but they might use poison,” he said. “They never forget. When I was at the KGB in the 1970s they were still chasing people who had betrayed them 30 years before.”
In an interview with The Guardian in 2013, Glushkov expressed similar concerns. As the list of Russians in exile gets smaller and smaller, he mentioned then that “I don’t see anyone left on it apart from me.”
Though they have not officially and publicly tied this homicide to the Novichok attack on Skripal, British police have said that, “The Met Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, which has led the investigation from the outset, is now treating Mr Glushkov’s death as murder.”
The United Kingdom was hit with a targeted nerve agent attack on March 4, sending a former Russian spy and his daughter into the hospital in critical condition. It has caused an international outrage, as Russia has a long history of brazen attacks and assassinations on foreign soil, though this one has been more blatant than many. The British government has begun to respond, starting by ousting 23 Russian diplomats from the country and has threatened to seize the luxury real estate properties of Russian oligarchs.
Eyes have now turned to the recent death of Russian businessman Nikolai Glushkov (pictured above) in London, found dead on March 12 in his house. He was 68. The police have ruled his death a homicide, and a pathologist report stated that the cause of death was “compression to the neck.” The investigation is still ongoing.
Glushkov used to be the deputy director of Aeroflot, a Russian airline that is one of the oldest airlines in the world. He was also the financial manager of AvtoVAZ, a Russian car manufacturer. In 1999 he went to prison for five years for money laundering, and would be again sentenced in 2006 for fraud. He left the country and went to the UK, joining the ranks of many Russians who had fled for various reasons.
He was reported to have had close, personal connections with Boris Berezovsky — a man who was known for his open, vocal criticisms regarding Putin, who lived in exile after he was asked by the Kremlin to come in for questioning. He was later convicted of fraud and embezzlement, though he never returned to his home country. After two alleged assassination attempts and the assassinations of his other Russian exile associate Alexander Litvinenko (of poloium 210 infamy) and Georgian Badri Patarkatsishvili, Berezovsky was found in his home, an alleged suicide by hanging.
And now like Berezovsky, Litvinenko, Patarkatsishvili and almost Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Glushkov has found his way to a mysterious death.
Skripal had once said that he was afraid the Russian government would come for him. “They will try to shoot me in the back of the head, but they might use poison,” he said. “They never forget. When I was at the KGB in the 1970s they were still chasing people who had betrayed them 30 years before.”
In an interview with The Guardian in 2013, Glushkov expressed similar concerns. As the list of Russians in exile gets smaller and smaller, he mentioned then that “I don’t see anyone left on it apart from me.”
Though they have not officially and publicly tied this homicide to the Novichok attack on Skripal, British police have said that, “The Met Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, which has led the investigation from the outset, is now treating Mr Glushkov’s death as murder.”
Featured image courtesy of the Associated Press.
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