Buzzfeed’s new reporting that as many as 14 killings on British soil may, in fact, have been Russian FSB assassinations is probably, at the very least, not good news for PM Theresa May.
At all.
A two-year investigation by BuzzFeed News has now uncovered explosive evidence pointing to Russia that the police overlooked. A massive trove of documents, phone records, and secret recordings shows Young was part of a circle of nine men, including the exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who all died suspiciously on British soil after making powerful enemies in Russia. The files reveal that Young lived in the shadow of the Russian security services and mafia groups after fronting for Berezovsky – a sworn enemy of the state – in a series of deals that enraged the Kremlin, including the doomed Russian property deal known as Project Moscow. British police declared the deaths of all nine men in Berezovsky’s circle non-suspicious, but BuzzFeed News can now reveal that MI6, Britain’s secret intelligence service, asked its US counterparts for information about each one of them “in the context of assassinations”.
Earlier this week, we revealed that US spy agencies had handed the British government high-grade intelligence that the Russian whistleblower Alexander Perepilichnyy, who died in Surrey in 2012, was likely assassinated on the direct orders of the Kremlin – but the authorities sidelined that and other evidence pointing to murder, instead declaring that he had died of natural causes. Today, we can reveal that US intelligence officials suspect a further 13 people – including Berezovsky and eight members of his circle – have been assassinated on British soil by Russia’s security services or mafia groups, two forces that sometimes work in tandem.
Reading this highly detailed expose that deals with everything from a 2006 Russian law giving FSB agents “a licence to kill enemies of the state abroad” to turf wars that seem to be taking place between American and British intelligence and even within both Scotland Yard and MI6, I would assume that Theresa May, as former Home Secretary, has a wide and deep knowledge of these various investigations and, therefore, a bit of explaining to do. The Buzzfeed report does observe
Prime minister Theresa May is facing growing calls to respond to claims that her government has concealed evidence relating to Russian assassinations in Britain. In her six years as home secretary, she spearheaded the British government’s response to national security threats and presided over cuts of £2.3 billion from the national law enforcement budget that several senior officers have blamed for a drastic reduction in police capabilities. May personally intervened to delay the public inquiry into Litvinenko’s death, citing the need to protect “international relations” with Russia. And in the Perepilichnyy case, her government has withheld sensitive evidence from the inquest on “national security” grounds. Downing Street, the Home Office and Scotland Yard did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Buzzfeed’s reporting is very long, very detailed, and well worth the read not only for its chronicle of the extent the reach of Russian oligarchs and FSB agents into Britain but also as a harbinger, I guess, of what our own country may be looking forward to given the apparently increasing influence and friendliness of the current Administration to Russian interests.
This report is very scary.