Speaker 1: Something strange is going on. Who is killing Russian billionaires?
Speaker 1: Another Russian oligarch has been found dead. Reports suggests that
Speaker 1: he hanged himself, fell out of a window, slashed his wrists,
Speaker 1: was poisoned, murdered his whole family.
Speaker 2: Last year, more than a dozen Russian oligarchs died in
Speaker 2: the space of nine months. Many of the deaths are
Speaker 2: suspicious with links to the Kremlin. This is sad Oligach,
Speaker 2: an investigation into these recently dead Russian billionaires. It's created
Speaker 2: by me jake Hanrahan and my colleague Sergey Slipchenko. Sad
Speaker 2: Oligarch is a h eleven production for Kulso Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: As the bodies of mangled PMC. Wagna Fights has piled
Speaker 2: up on East Ukraine's blackmut frontline, progosion began to crack.
Speaker 2: His men were getting decimated. Ukrainian drawing footage shows dozens
Speaker 2: of mercenary corpses dotted around the smoldering ruins of their trenches,
Speaker 2: burned out vehicles and bullet riddle bodies. The myth of PMC.
Speaker 2: Wagner being an elite operator force was being debunked in
Speaker 2: real time as these videos spread across social media. Throughout May,
Speaker 2: Progosion released some footage of his own father.
Speaker 3: Shah.
Speaker 2: In a now infamous video first posted to Telegram, he
Speaker 2: angrily addresses the Russian military leadership. Progosion accused Sergei Shogu,
Speaker 2: the Defense Minister, and Valeri Garrisimov, the Chief of General Staff,
Speaker 2: withholding artillery ammunition from his fighters. He says, quote, that's
Speaker 2: direct obstruction, plain and simple. It can be equated with
Speaker 2: high treason and the battle for BAGHMUTI times more of
Speaker 2: my guy has died than should have. Listen to me,
Speaker 2: you slim. These are somebody's father's, somebody's sons, and the
Speaker 2: skum who aren't given us the ammunition will be eating
Speaker 2: their guts in hell with seventy percent short on ammo. Shogu, Garrisimov,
Speaker 2: where's the fucking ammo? End quote? He was blaming them.
Speaker 2: In another video, stood in front of the camera with
Speaker 2: MPMC Wagner fighters surrounding him, Progosion appears increasingly frustrated. Several
Speaker 2: more videos like this will be released, with Progosion exploding
Speaker 2: in a fit of rage as he got more and
Speaker 2: more daring in his criticism of the Russian state. This
Speaker 2: culminated on June twenty four to twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 2: beginning of the short lived Wagner Mutiny, footage of what
Speaker 2: was allegedly a Russian military strike on Wagner positions inside
Speaker 2: occupied areas of Ukraine was released via PMC. Wagner media
Speaker 2: Progosian claimed that dozens of his men had been killed
Speaker 2: by his fellow countrymen serving the Russian EMOD. Not a
Speaker 2: single body is actually seen in any of this footage, though,
Speaker 2: just random shots of ruined positions with gunfire heard amongst
Speaker 2: the trees in the near distance. In fact, to this day,
Speaker 2: there's been no evidence any Wagner fighters were killed in
Speaker 2: this alleged friendly fire strike on their base, if it
Speaker 2: even happened at all. Immediately, the Russian Ministry of Defense
Speaker 2: released a statement saying quote all the messages and videos
Speaker 2: spread on social media networks on behalf of progosing about
Speaker 2: the alleged strike of the Russian Ministry of Defense against
Speaker 2: the rear camps of the Wagner PMC are untrue and
Speaker 2: are in information provocation. The Armed forces of the Russian
Speaker 2: Federation continue to carry out combat tasks on the line
Speaker 2: of contact with the AFU in the area of the
Speaker 2: special military operation ends quote now if you don't already know,
Speaker 2: the special military operation is what Russia has decided to
Speaker 2: call its awful invasion of Ukraine. Now, whatever happened, it
Speaker 2: served as the match that lit the fire on the
Speaker 2: PMC Wagner mutiny. Progosin had had enough. It was time
Speaker 2: to ride on Moscow. PMC Wagner fighters turned down armored
Speaker 2: vehicles around, loaded their trucks with weapons, and drove over
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian border back into Russia. By the evening, armed
Speaker 2: Wagner fighters were seen on the streets of Russia's Rostov,
Speaker 2: just over Ukraine's border. They were actually warmly welcomed by
Speaker 2: the citizens there and pretty much the same with every
Speaker 2: Russian town they go on to take. This was quite
Speaker 2: shocking considering PMC Wagner is known worldwide and in Russia
Speaker 2: for its immense brutality. As PFO explains, Wagner made a
Speaker 2: name for itself in blood.
Speaker 3: Wagner's reputation for brutality really began and they definitely sort
Speaker 3: of played on it from an incident in twenty eighteen
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen with a Syrian man called Handy Booter, who
Speaker 3: they videoed murdering in an incredibly brutal fashion by videoing
Speaker 3: him pinned at the ground. What They smashed all his
Speaker 3: limbs with a sledgehammer, then they cut off his head
Speaker 3: with a trenching shovel, and then Setib's body on fire
Speaker 3: and dismembered it all on video.
Speaker 2: This horrific incident took place in twenty seventeen at the
Speaker 2: Alsher gas plant near Palmira in Syria. In broad daylight,
Speaker 2: Handy Butter is torn to pieces, as if smashing the
Speaker 2: man in the head and groin with a sledgehammer and
Speaker 2: dismembering him with a combat shovel wasn't gruesome enough. PMC
Speaker 2: Wagner fighters then posed with the burned remains of parts
Speaker 2: of Handy Booter's body. It's worth noting that the whole
Speaker 2: time this awful scene is going on, PMC Wagner fighters
Speaker 2: can be heard laughing in the background as Booter's limbs
Speaker 2: are smashed with the sledgehammer. They're also playing music as
Speaker 2: if this is some kind of celebration. Handy Booter had
Speaker 2: fled a sad regime forces and ran to the gas
Speaker 2: plant seeking help. He didn't realize Wagner had taken control
Speaker 2: of it and so he was tortured to death on camera.
Speaker 3: It's one of the most vile sayings I've ever seen
Speaker 3: on video. They really played on that, and you know
Speaker 3: they've made the image of the sledgehammer one of their symbols.
Speaker 3: You know. Pregosion had it in his apartment when it
Speaker 3: was raided. They sent a sledgehammer to the European Parliament
Speaker 3: as well as a sort of fuck you gesture.
Speaker 2: So not only did they butcher this poor man on camera. PMC.
Speaker 2: Wagner then used this brutality as a symbol to promote themselves.
Speaker 2: Believe it or not, it actually worked. Many Russian ultra
Speaker 2: nationalists fell in love with Wagner after this incident, and
Speaker 2: their ranks increased. The Wagner sledgehammer made another appearance in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two in East Ukraine. An aging Russian fighter
Speaker 2: who tried to surrender to the Ukrainians was captured by PMC. Wagner.
Speaker 2: They filmed themselves caving his head in with a sledgehammer
Speaker 2: as punishment. The video begins with the man laying down
Speaker 2: with his head balanced on its side on a brick,
Speaker 2: then comes down the sledgehammer, literally bashing his brains out.
Speaker 3: The sledgehammering. Being as gratuitously violent as possible is part
Speaker 3: of the image. In terms of their other warkimes, I mean,
Speaker 3: they committed horrific acts in the Central African Republic in particular,
Speaker 3: there's drone footage even capturing them just shooting people passing
Speaker 3: by on the road, detaining random people who are unfortunate
Speaker 3: enough to stop buy on their bicycle near one of
Speaker 3: their bases, torturing them to death, stuffing their bodies into
Speaker 3: termite holes in order to decompose them quicker. This whole
Speaker 3: complete destructions of villagers, lots and lots of theft and rape.
Speaker 3: The thing is and this is important to the context
Speaker 3: of the war in Ukraine. This isn't necessarily unique to Wagner.
Speaker 3: Like across the whole war in Ukraine, we've seen horrific
Speaker 3: war crimes committed on a really major basis by all
Speaker 3: sorts of Russian military units. So I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: it's Wagner stick out for this so much that this
Speaker 3: is what the Russian military's behavior is like.
Speaker 2: So as this battalion of war criminal mercenaries swept across
Speaker 2: Russia amidst its mutiny, riding all the way to Moscow.
Speaker 2: Incredible scenes were shared across the internet. Russian military began
Speaker 2: digging combat trenches around Moscow, wagnerfiers disarmed and took over
Speaker 2: Russian military basis, and open gun battles broke out between
Speaker 2: Wagner and the Russian military all inside Russia. Wagner vehicles
Speaker 2: were bombed from the skies and several fighters died on
Speaker 2: each side as fishes. All seemed from the outside at least,
Speaker 2: this mostly looked to be the real deal. Progosian was
Speaker 2: steaming through checkpoints with over one hundred and eighty Russian
Speaker 2: soldiers refusing to interfere with the mutiny. At the borders,
Speaker 2: Wagner tanks surrounded government buildings. This was a big deal.
Speaker 2: The Kremlin frankly looked weak and they were beginning to
Speaker 2: lose control of the monster they had created, that is PMC. Wagner.
Speaker 2: There was even a joke going round that the Russian
Speaker 2: military had gone from the second strongest armed force in
Speaker 2: the world to the second strongest in Russia before this mutiny.
Speaker 2: Progosion was the face of Wagner as opposed to the
Speaker 2: guy leading the ops. Remember, he had zero military background
Speaker 2: before officially associating himself with the private military contractor from
Speaker 2: in September twenty twenty two. Of course he was always involved,
Speaker 2: but this is when he officially said, yeah, it's me,
Speaker 2: I'm their guy.
Speaker 3: I don't think he had any decision making role in
Speaker 3: the military activities of Wagner, although some of the defectors
Speaker 3: do say that he was on the phone quite frequently
Speaker 3: when they were in Syria, like demanding info on casualty
Speaker 3: counts and stuff. It's like a micromanager for different contracts.
Speaker 3: I don't believe there is even now any single company
Speaker 3: that's like, oh, this is Chubbercat Wagner. That doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: It's an enormously complicated network of little companies and shells
Speaker 3: that he is the sort of connective tissue between. And
Speaker 3: like his role is this sort of super contractor going
Speaker 3: back and forth between all these different elements. And I
Speaker 3: think his connection to the leadership and his function is
Speaker 3: specifically close to Putin. I think we know that he
Speaker 3: used to call the presidential administration constantly. He was always
Speaker 3: on the phone with people at the presidential administration, even
Speaker 3: back in twenty fourteen, and that was proved by the
Speaker 3: phone records that Blencat got hold of. And I think
Speaker 3: it's that combination of being from Petersburg, knowing Putin in
Speaker 3: a sort of very close level from doing the restaurant business.
Speaker 3: And also I think because there's probably seen as being
Speaker 3: a utility, he's someone usable because of his criminal background.
Speaker 3: He's got that element of like dirtiness that you don't
Speaker 3: need to worry about keeping clean.
Speaker 2: It seems that after seeing the reality of his men
Speaker 2: getting slaughtered as opposed to doing the slaughtering, Progojin decided
Speaker 2: that his role as the middleman was over. With the
Speaker 2: backing of Ukin, he launched the PMC Wagner Mutiny. Whilst
Speaker 2: claiming his intentions weren't to actually violently storm the Kremlin,
Speaker 2: the writing was already on the wall. It was too late.
Speaker 2: Putin had been humiliated. He went on to National TV
Speaker 2: and addressed the nation, saying that Progosion was a traitor.
Speaker 2: Putin said, quote, I've spoken with commanders on all fronts.
Speaker 2: I've also addressed those who've been deceived or coerced into
Speaker 2: a criminal adventure, driven onto the path of a serious crime,
Speaker 2: armed rebellion end quote. He essentially put all PMC Wagner
Speaker 2: fighters on notice. Then, after twenty five four hours of
Speaker 2: aunt pursuit into the Capitol, the order came from Progosion
Speaker 2: that the mutiny was suddenly over. Just like that, the
Speaker 2: flame went out. Him and his fighters were just two
Speaker 2: hundred kilometers from Moscow when this happened. In an audio statement,
Speaker 2: Progosion said, quote, right now, the moment has come when
Speaker 2: the blood could be spilled. Therefore, understanding all the responsibility
Speaker 2: for the fact that Russian blood will be spilled on
Speaker 2: one side, we are turning our convoy around and going
Speaker 2: back to our base camps according to the plan ends
Speaker 2: quote Okay, Progosion, that was definitely the plan. So who
Speaker 2: knows what Putin dangled over Progosian to reverse this wild
Speaker 2: excursion into Russia, But whatever it was, it worked. PMC.
Speaker 2: Wagner convoys turned around and made their way back to Ukraine,
Speaker 2: where they plan to carry on fighting Russia's invasion. After
Speaker 2: the mutiny, though, Progosion was exiled to Belarus and his
Speaker 2: fighters were put on a short leash by the Russian
Speaker 2: mod a month later. As we know, Progojin and Ukin
Speaker 2: were toast dying in the plane crash. And what's interesting
Speaker 2: is that from the footage it's clear that the jet
Speaker 2: they were in didn't just crash, it was shot out
Speaker 2: of the sky. A missile took out Progogin's jet as
Speaker 2: he flew from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. The Russian authorities
Speaker 2: said they're investigating, but who are they going to investigate?
Speaker 2: I think it's quite clear who the prime suspect for
Speaker 2: this might be. Putin is a violent man obsessed with
Speaker 2: his own pride and self image as the strong man
Speaker 2: of Russia. There's just no way Progosing was going to
Speaker 2: be allowed to get away with challenging him on the
Speaker 2: world stage the way he did. Putin essentially then showed
Speaker 2: the whole world that he is so willing to step
Speaker 2: over the line that he will literally have his former
Speaker 2: comm raid shot out of the sky over Russian airspace.
Speaker 2: The reason I think this incident with pregosion is so
Speaker 2: important is that it casts the other sad Oligach deaths
Speaker 2: in a different light. That is, if the Kremlin was
Speaker 2: at all involved, which remember we don't know for certain,
Speaker 2: but if the Kremlin was involved in these deaths, it
Speaker 2: suddenly makes the idea that the government killed people with
Speaker 2: frog venom poisoning, family annihilation, and mysterious suicide seem a
Speaker 2: lot less absurd. After all, none of these are quite
Speaker 2: as wild shooting a jet out of the sky as
Speaker 2: it flies out from your own capital. This is the
Speaker 2: final episode of sad Oligach. We've covered the extremely violent
Speaker 2: or extremely unusual deaths of a dozen filthy rich Russians,
Speaker 2: all of which died in rapid succession in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two and twenty twenty three. None of these cases are
Speaker 2: clear cut. The majority of them are unsolved, and the
Speaker 2: information on them becomes sparser as the deaths keep happening.
Speaker 2: Miu and Sergei Slipchenko have spent twelve months investigating all
Speaker 2: of this, with limited resources and many people scared to
Speaker 2: speak to us due to the Kremlin's iron grip. Still though,
Speaker 2: we've put together a comprehensive project showing who's been killed,
Speaker 2: how they're connected, and why the deaths are so enigmatic.
Speaker 2: Many of the people we covered in this series were
Speaker 2: generally not good people. However, their strange, interconnected deaths I believe,
Speaker 2: reveals that something very dark is going on inside Putin's Russia,
Speaker 2: and it's happening quicker and more violently than ever before.
Speaker 2: So who do we think is these Russian billionaires and
Speaker 2: multi millionaires. Surgery and me had one last conversation about this,
Speaker 2: having reviewed all our work from the past year. We
Speaker 2: started working this year ago now and it's come to
Speaker 2: the end. And obviously we've been very careful not to
Speaker 2: try and jump to conclusions and put too much of
Speaker 2: our thoughts into what's happening. I think some people listen
Speaker 2: to this and they hear some of what's happened, and
Speaker 2: they're just like, come on, clearly it's this, and we
Speaker 2: don't we just you know, you can't we don't know.
Speaker 2: We can't say it looks fishy. It might look like X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z, but we can't say. So I think,
Speaker 2: now let's just let's just, you know, let's just kind
Speaker 2: of suspend that for a second, and I guess, like,
Speaker 2: what what do you think is happening? After looking into
Speaker 2: these dozen or so mysterious deaths, what do you think
Speaker 2: is going on?
Speaker 4: I definitely see huge pattern, huge pattern, especially with some
Speaker 4: of the cases like the family annihilations happening back to back.
Speaker 4: I don't want to point to anything and be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I know, I don't have any insider information that like
Speaker 4: somebody's confirming it. I don't think we will for the
Speaker 4: most part, because a lot of these are in Russia,
Speaker 4: and there's no way, I mean, unless there's some kind
Speaker 4: of like Soviet type collapse and then everything is opened up,
Speaker 4: you know, this information that these reports and stuff that
Speaker 4: are like not being published or being altered and stuff.
Speaker 4: Until we get something really solid, we can't ever really
Speaker 4: say like, yeah, this is what it was for sure.
Speaker 4: But I think with this podcast, what you can kind
Speaker 4: of look going through it is there's definitely a pattern
Speaker 4: that almost seems in a way methodical. Right. These methods
Speaker 4: are pretty similar, you know, falling out of windows or
Speaker 4: framing it as a murder suicide. They have a pattern
Speaker 4: to themselves. And also all these connections to the oil
Speaker 4: gas industry is kind of hard to ignore, right. The
Speaker 4: guys are either worked in made their fortune or worked
Speaker 4: along side somebody in the oil and gas industry, and
Speaker 4: its just like it's so interconnected. It's kind of hard
Speaker 4: to believe that like nothing is happening outside of that. Again,
Speaker 4: we can't prove who it is. I was I would say,
Speaker 4: you know, I think the likely perpetrators are either the
Speaker 4: Russian government covering things up, or it's something between like
Speaker 4: business partners essentially.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I think the biggest pattern that I kind of see
Speaker 4: from this, if I have to theorize, it seems like
Speaker 4: their Russian government is seeing that money is leaking really
Speaker 4: hard from their military complex essentially.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I think the invasion in Ukraine kind of showed just
Speaker 4: how rotten the entire military, Air Force, navy are. You know,
Speaker 4: like there's reports of them having to use like World
Speaker 4: War Two rounds when on paper they've been producing military munitions, shells, tanks,
Speaker 4: you know, everything like NonStop year tier, and then you
Speaker 4: find out there's no AMMO, or they're lacking AMMO or
Speaker 4: it's just like getting their because they're so dysfunctional. And
Speaker 4: I think maybe the Russian government has started looking into,
Speaker 4: you know, where is this issue coming from, and a
Speaker 4: lot of these things where they see like money is
Speaker 4: missing or if funds are misappropriated, they basically charge you
Speaker 4: with treason. I think that's because that's how they see it.
Speaker 4: They see it as like you're betraying your country. You know,
Speaker 4: you're betraying the military, betraying the war effort. It's not
Speaker 4: just like Oh, you committed a crime, you go to jail.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like it's more like almost tribal or
Speaker 4: gang like, right, you betrayed the tribe, and now you're
Speaker 4: going to pay for it. And I think somebody going
Speaker 4: to jail is a much softer message than somebody not
Speaker 4: just dying, but their entire family being murdered.
Speaker 2: I think that's a good point. And I think this
Speaker 2: idea of trees and it's trees and it's trees, and
Speaker 2: not just within the military, but within business dealings whatever.
Speaker 2: Especially since Russia invited Ukraine, I feel like it's possible
Speaker 2: that this treason idea has then been taken to the
Speaker 2: end degree and it's like, okay, then we're not just
Speaker 2: doing random hits. We're convicting people and executing them for
Speaker 2: treason willbeit in an extra judicial way, as opposed to
Speaker 2: going through cool or whatever.
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know how gangs ran Russia and
Speaker 4: basically incorporated themselves into the government. These killings really remind
Speaker 4: me of that, like organized crime. You know, you betrayed
Speaker 4: the family and now you you know, you pay with
Speaker 4: your life. That's what it really reminds me of. I
Speaker 4: don't want to you know, push like cartoonish kind of
Speaker 4: villainization of Russia, but they definitely have this mafia gang
Speaker 4: background to them, and I don't think it's too wild
Speaker 4: to think that it carried on into how you know,
Speaker 4: the government operates, how death has Bell operates, and something
Speaker 4: that they would do, Like I wouldn't put it beyond
Speaker 4: the realm of reality. I think it's maybe hard to
Speaker 4: kind of fathom that and think of it as like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what happens day today. But I think it's a
Speaker 4: very real possibility.
Speaker 2: No, definitely, And we've seen it with Gazprom quote unquote
Speaker 2: security turning up in black cars and literally removing police
Speaker 2: officers from the scene of a quote unquote suicide and
Speaker 2: taken over the investigation. How the hell does that even happen.
Speaker 2: How can a private company then trump a potential murder investigation.
Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense. But no, what you said there
Speaker 2: is right, We're not. We've tried very hard not to
Speaker 2: like come up with this ridiculous, cartoonish boogieman Russia stereotype
Speaker 2: that is very popular amongst the media right now because
Speaker 2: of the invasion of Ukraine. It happens in every country
Speaker 2: like America, is up to its eyes in corruption its government.
Speaker 2: My country England is an absolute joke. Like our prime
Speaker 2: minister just like awarded a huge business contract to his
Speaker 2: actual family and a law was shifted to a commodate that,
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, okay, well that is it's pretty
Speaker 2: much oligarchy in a sense. You know, it's just oh,
Speaker 2: we don't do that in the West. We absolutely do.
Speaker 2: We just have different methods and different culture around it.
Speaker 2: But in this instance, I think Russia is quite unique
Speaker 2: in that it's very kind of balls out with the
Speaker 2: violence of it, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure. You know, up to the invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 4: Russia really tried to be more careful with like politics
Speaker 4: and stuff and kind of their image as a country.
Speaker 4: They always frame themselves as the victim of the of
Speaker 4: that of being like oppressed by the US and NATO,
Speaker 4: and I think now that they should up invaded and
Speaker 4: they're very obviously committing human rights violations like war crimes.
Speaker 4: I think they're kind of like, screw it, we don't
Speaker 4: need to upkeep anything. Plus, all the attention is on
Speaker 4: Ukraine right now. You barely see anything about this, you know,
Speaker 4: so it's like it seems like a good time to
Speaker 4: clean house, so to say.
Speaker 2: If you look at the history of Prutin as well,
Speaker 2: before he was even in the position of power that
Speaker 2: he's now, similar things like this have happened to other
Speaker 2: people around him. Not on this degree, not this many times,
Speaker 2: not this many people, but similar things have happened as
Speaker 2: is with several different Russian politicians. And I agree with you.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's Putin sat there in his palace
Speaker 2: being like this one hit this guy is what to do.
Speaker 2: I just think he has bred a culture of totalitarian
Speaker 2: violence within the Kremlin, and it possibly has given a
Speaker 2: green light to people to be like, hey have a
Speaker 2: it now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, this is not new. I mean all
Speaker 4: throughout throughout his I don't know, reign or his leadership.
Speaker 4: You've seen journalists die. It was just much maybe it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, the ones that were public were much much rare.
Speaker 4: There was the journalist who was killed I forget her name.
Speaker 4: There was the politician who was killed like just straight
Speaker 4: up in front of Parliament in daylight. He was shot
Speaker 4: in the back. But like, this is nothing new. It's
Speaker 4: not like all of a sudden this is a new
Speaker 4: for nomenal that's happening. This has been happening for a
Speaker 4: long time. The Chichen War was started by apartment bombings.
Speaker 4: That is quite convincingly proved to be like through the
Speaker 4: fasbad conducting those apartment bombings, right, And I just think
Speaker 4: maybe if you're not in this, like if you're not
Speaker 4: into this world and you're not really looking into it
Speaker 4: and reading stuff, it may seem like it comes out
Speaker 4: of nowhere. But I think if you followed this, if
Speaker 4: you followed Russia and just how it operates, it kind
Speaker 4: of it's not that out of the norm or that
Speaker 4: far fetched for these things to be happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're on about Boris Nemstov who was shot
Speaker 2: on the bridge in the back. I was talking to
Speaker 2: a friend about this and something quite chilling that he
Speaker 2: pointed out was if you look at the location where
Speaker 2: he was shot and where all the press forwards were
Speaker 2: then shot with the flowers with the frame pictures, because
Speaker 2: you know, Nemstov was loved by a lot of people,
Speaker 2: if you look at the photos, then the Kremlin is
Speaker 2: just in the background of every shot. It has to
Speaker 2: be because of the positioning. And his theory was, yeah,
Speaker 2: they made that on purpose. You can't just wander around
Speaker 2: and just randomly kill people in that area because you know,
Speaker 2: it's essentially meant to be, in a way, the kind
Speaker 2: of safest place in the city because that's where the
Speaker 2: government is, right. And if you look at those images,
Speaker 2: there's one very specific one where a guy is like
Speaker 2: laying down some roses and just in the background you
Speaker 2: can see the Kremlin there the whole time, and there's
Speaker 2: something very eerie about that. And when I was looking
Speaker 2: at that, I then kind of looked at some of
Speaker 2: these other killings, and you know, you don't want to
Speaker 2: jump to conclusions, but it's like, yeah, I definitely think
Speaker 2: there's certain significances to these things. Again a pattern, like
Speaker 2: you said, for example, Pregosion was killed a month to
Speaker 2: the day after his after his little mutiny. It's very coincidental.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, I can definitely see that. You know,
Speaker 4: part of part of this is I think with Pregosion, like,
Speaker 4: I don't think it was accidental. I like the day
Speaker 4: that that had happened, it seems like very symbolic and
Speaker 4: very much of this is what you get, like if
Speaker 4: you mess with me kind of thing, because I think
Speaker 4: Putin was very much embarrassed and humiliated by the fact
Speaker 4: that Wagner could even threaten Kremlin, right. I think that
Speaker 4: was a huge blow to his ego, to his image.
Speaker 4: And I think doing it like you said, a month
Speaker 4: to the day afterwards is definitely symbolic and like kind
Speaker 4: of showing like this is what happens if you mess
Speaker 4: with me.
Speaker 2: It's almost like, hey, here's a signature, which I feel
Speaker 2: like in some of these cases, there's perhaps you could
Speaker 2: argue a sign of a signature on some of these things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think Russia's done this a lot,
Speaker 4: you know, with a lot of the pop poisonings in England,
Speaker 4: like they kind of don't really care if they leave
Speaker 4: a trace to the point where always seems like they
Speaker 4: want to. They kind of want to, you know, like
Speaker 4: laugh in like the West face like we can do
Speaker 4: this and look at you not doing anything. Like a
Speaker 4: lot of these deaths happened. The guys went back to
Speaker 4: Russia and they were on TV essentially marking the West
Speaker 4: and saying like, oh, we were just in vacation, we
Speaker 4: got away with it. What are you going to do?
Speaker 2: So let's end this with three different theories as to
Speaker 2: what might be happening in Russia regarding the sad oligarch deaths.
Speaker 2: And remember I am not saying any of these are true.
Speaker 2: You can decide first theory. Post Soviet Russia bred a
Speaker 2: class of oligarchs who made their money through lawlessness and extortion.
Speaker 2: They then swapped their bandit hats for suits and loafers
Speaker 2: once the money was made legit through government schemes, many
Speaker 2: of which were run by people of the same ilk politics,
Speaker 2: business crime. A ven diagram of early post Soviet Russia.
Speaker 2: First forward thirty years or so, and the seeds are
Speaker 2: in full bloom. What was the start of a new
Speaker 2: chapter for Russia is now solid ingrained and under control
Speaker 2: of an increasingly violent dictator with great wealth and power.
Speaker 2: If anyone agitates against Putin, he deals with them in
Speaker 2: the way any authoritarian does. He crushes them, either metaphorically
Speaker 2: or literally. Everyone who came up and made bank in
Speaker 2: this era is in some way associated with his circles,
Speaker 2: because that's how it is. You can't be on the
Speaker 2: take against the Kremlin, not for long anyway. Through this
Speaker 2: culture of big money and totalitarianism, everyone is prepared to
Speaker 2: snake each other at any moment. So when Putin started
Speaker 2: his war on Ukraine, which caused a gigantic geopolitical shift,
Speaker 2: really needed to be dealt with. Various oligarchs, by definition,
Speaker 2: are intermingled with the politics of Putin's Russia. They're powerful too.
Speaker 2: Putin doesn't like that the Kremlin and its various tentacles
Speaker 2: are given a green light for a scorched earth policy
Speaker 2: on these people if they don't play board. Various different
Speaker 2: groups ready to do dirty work for the Kremlin or
Speaker 2: the best price immobilized. It's not the first time. In
Speaker 2: keeping with the USSR, the art of assassination that looks
Speaker 2: like an accident is employed. After all, they want to
Speaker 2: warn everyone to keep in line, but they can't be
Speaker 2: seen to the public to be going full mask off
Speaker 2: monster on their own associates. It looks unruly, and so
Speaker 2: the Kremlin has been rapidly killing its powerful detractors in
Speaker 2: a bid to further consolidate power like never before, as
Speaker 2: Russia enters new grounds of global pariah. Second theory, oligarchs
Speaker 2: themselves criminals by nature, are using the distractions of the
Speaker 2: Ukraine war to deal with rivals. It helps business, It
Speaker 2: keeps things in order, and it might even put you
Speaker 2: in Putin's good books. With all the money in the world,
Speaker 2: these people can hire whole teams of hitmen if needed.
Speaker 2: They don't want to go to prison and they don't
Speaker 2: want to be seen as cold blooded killers, so the
Speaker 2: higher people that will make it all look like a
Speaker 2: bit of an accident. Third theory, Russian oligarchs are just
Speaker 2: very clumsy, prone to accidents, and regularly depressed. This has
Speaker 2: been sad Oligarch. Thank you for listening. Before we end this,
Speaker 2: I just want to speak briefly about my friend and
Speaker 2: colleague on this project, Sergey Slipchenko. You've heard him throughout
Speaker 2: the series, adding much needed context and digging up information
Speaker 2: that's not easy to find. Sergi himself is Ukrainian. In fact,
Speaker 2: I was in Kiev with him just days before Russia invaded.
Speaker 2: His home was uprooted and he had to leave. This
Speaker 2: project is understandably quite personal for him, but despite this,
Speaker 2: he's never once let that cloud his judgment. There would
Speaker 2: be no sad Oligach without him. Sergi is an excellent
Speaker 2: journalist and he has a new project starting soon investigating
Speaker 2: the often overlooked geopolitical shifts in the Arctic. It's going
Speaker 2: to be good, so check it out at www. Dot
Speaker 2: arcticpod dot co. Sad Oligach is a H eleven production
Speaker 2: for Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio, hosted, produced, researched and
Speaker 2: edited by me Jake Hanrahan and Sergi slipchenkok Co produced
Speaker 2: by Sophie Lichtman. Music by Sam Black, artwork by Adam mcdoyle,
Speaker 2: sound mix by Splicing Block. Go to Jacanrahan dot com
Speaker 2: for more information.
Speaker 1: Another Russian Holigark has been found dead. The report suggests
Speaker 1: that he hanged himself bell out a window, slashed his wrists,
Speaker 1: He was poisoned, murdered his whole family. Something strange is
Speaker 1: going on.