There’s no real proof of this.
Some double agents died this way. Another double agent was attacked by the GRU when he was in a meeting. Agents rushed in, grabbed him, and dragged him away. I take it Putin, former KGB, isn’t real fond of double agents. I believe that Putin had a former president of Ukraine poisoned, but he recovered. I don’t know what to make of reports that other oppositionists were poisoned.
Some opposition reporters have been beaten up. No one knows who sent those people. They reported that 200 soldiers died in 2014 when Russia said there were no Russian troops in Ukraine. Russia said there were no troops there. However, I was in a group of Russian patriots at the time and they all said Putin was lying.
Look, the thing is that Russia actually has a civil society, and investigative and muckracking journalists. These do not exist anywhere in the West anymore, at least when it comes to NATO/Western foreign policy. Try going against the foreign policy consensus in Washington and see where it gets you. Reporters from Germany (Alina Lipp), the UK (Graham Lancaster) and the Netherlands have all been attacked by their own country for writing pro-Russian articles. Lancaster had his bank account locked (his money got stolen) and there is a warrant out for his arrest, so he hasn’t gone home. Lipp also had the money in her bank account stolen and charges have been fired against her too. She hasn’t come home either. The Dutch woman has had a character assassination campaign unleashed against her. As you can see, it is literally illegal in the NATO West to oppose NATO foreign policy and to support Russia. You will literally go to jail for doing so!
On the other hand, on the Russian patriotic Telegram sites, their attitude is that they will uncover any lies the Russian government makes. They’re not interested in being lied to and they only want to hear the truth from the state. Hence, the Russian government can’t lie too much. All the lies get uncovered. This is different from in the West, where few if any journalists ever challenge the US government on its lies. Instead they just repeat them for the state.
An oppositionist was thrown out of a window by a fanatical Putin supporter, but he survived.There have been many journalists murdered under Putin, but it was worse under Yeltsin. I went through the list and out of ~100 murders, possibly one could be tied to Putin, if that. They were victims of common and organized crime and local officials and their hired thugs.
The idea that Putin murders his opposition isn’t really true.
You realize that there are 15-20 million Russians who are dead set against this war, right? Why are they not all flying out of windows? Why are they not all in prison?
I saw a BBC reporter in downtown Moscow a while ago interviewing Russians. All of them were against the war, and a few openly supported Ukraine and hoped it would win. None of them hid their faces. Nothing happened to any of those people. There are too many people like that. You going to put 17 million people in prison?
Putin’s a good martial artist and walks like a gun-wielding soldier. A far cry from our President who needs a tricycle:
https://youtu.be/c1aC-ixXS0o
Putin actually seems restrained. Might comes more naturally to a Russian.