Previously, Bellingcat and partners discovered that a secret FSB squad had followed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny during his presidential campaign in 2017, and in the days and months before he was poisoned in 2020. The same squad had also tailed Vladimir Kara-Murza and Dmitry Bykov in the days and months before their suspected poisonings. Travel data also showed members of the same unit appeared to have tracked at least three other activists who later died in mysterious circumstances. According to our investigations, the squad was comprised of chemical weapons experts from the FSB’s Criminalistics Institute and officers from the Directorate for the Protection of Constitutional Order of the FSB’s Second Service. The latter is described by the US Treasury as “managing internal political threats on behalf of the Kremlin.” Bellingcat subsequently identified the prominent role played by FSB officer Valery Sukharev in the operations against Navalny, Kara-Murza and Dmitry Bykov. Travel data shows he trailed Navalny during his 2017 presidential campaign, Kara-Murza immediately before his first apparent poisoning and Bykov for an entire year before he fell mysteriously ill with symptoms consistent with those experienced by Navalny and Kara-Murza. Sukharev also seems to have played a coordinating role in Navalny’s poisoning — exchanging over a hundred phone calls with five FSB agents implicated in the assassination attempt — including with one of the leaders of the operation Stanislav Makshakov.
An investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider and the BBC has now discovered that in the days and months prior to his assassination in 2015, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was tailed by members of the same assassination squad that would subsequently follow Kara-Murza, Bykov and Navalny. Nemtsov was once the man many thought would succeed Boris Yeltsin until Vladimir Putin was appointed acting president in December 1999. He became a thorn in the Kremlin’s side over the subsequent decade. He advocated international sanctions against Russia’s political leadership. He opposed the annexation of Crimea and demanded an independent investigation into the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine. In the years immediately preceding his death, Nemtsov was one of Putin’s fiercest critics — and among the most prominent.
via bellingcat: Boris Nemtsov Tailed by FSB Squad Prior to 2015 Murder
siehe auch: ANSCHLÄGE AUF REGIMEGEGNER: Nawalnyjs Beschatter folgte auch Nemzow. Vor seiner Ermordung im Februar 2015 wurde der russische Oppositionelle Boris Nemzow laut einer Bellingcat-Recherche von dem Agenten beschattet, der später auch Alexej Nawalnyj folgte. Der russische Oppositionelle Boris Nemzow ist vor seiner Ermordung vor sieben Jahren offenbar fast ein Jahr lang von einem Offizier des russischen Inlandsgeheimdienstes FSB beschattet worden, der mutmaßlich der Koordinator der Giftanschläge auf Alexej Nawalnyj und andere russische Regimegegner war. Das geht aus einem Bericht des Rechercheportals Bellingcat, des russischen Onlinemediums The Insider und der BBC hervor. Nemzow wurde am Abend des 27. Februar 2015 auf einer Brücke im Zentrum von Moskau in Sichtweite des Kremls erschossen.