For the second time in less than two weeks, a prominent Russian expat has been found dead or injured in the United Kingdom.
The 68-year-old Nikolai Glushkov was found dead at his home in London on Monday night, according to The Guardian. The cause of Glushkov's death is unclear and no evidence has emerged so far linking it to last week's poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged "clearly came from Russia." Nevertheless, like Sergei Skripal, Glushkov was a man who had arguably crossed the Kremlin.
In Glushkov's case, the underlying problem was his close relationship with Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch who fled to the United Kingdom after having a falling out with Vladimir Putin. While that happened, Glushkov was charged with money-laundering and fraud and ultimately wound up spending five years in jail, not being freed until 2004. Glushkov later received political asylum in the United Kingdom. In court in 2011, Glushkov testified against Putin ally Roman Abramovich, and stated that he had been basically held "hostage" by the Putin regime in order to convince Berezovsky to sell one of his TV stations.
In 2013, Berezovsky was found dead in his ex-wife's home from an apparent hanging. Although police claimed that Berezovsky had committed suicide, Glushkov was convinced that "Boris was strangled. Either he did it himself or with the help of someone. [But] I don’t believe it was suicide."
Sergei Skripal, on the other hand, was found unconscious next to his daughter on a park bench in Salisbury last week, according to The New York Times. British Prime Minister Theresa May declared that it was "highly likely" that Russia was to blame for the attack on the Skirpals, while Tillerson explained that the nerve agent used against them "is only in the hands of a very, very limited number of parties."
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