Russians Keep Turning Up Dead All over the World(wsj.com)
wsj.com
Russians Keep Turning Up Dead All over the World
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/russians-keep-turning-up-dead-all-over-the-world-6acc8990
68 comments
https://archive.ph/9uA8F
Embarrassing that the West can't protect these people.
It tells me that the Russians infiltrated a lot.
It tells me that the Russians infiltrated a lot.
Who is this 'the West' and how would you expect it to monitor and protect millions of Russians amongst billions of people in hundreds of countries?
'The West' is the collection of countries comprising "The Anglophone Five Eyes", Europe and Japan as an honorary addition.
What other name would you use for this bunch of people? "The West" has become the normal accepted term over the last few decades.
What other name would you use for this bunch of people? "The West" has become the normal accepted term over the last few decades.
The BRICS is also a well defined group of nations that has little in common besides some investment banker report from how their economies correlated in the early 2000s and bureaucratic plans for mutual currency swap.
Naming groups of things doesn't make them a coherent whole.
Naming groups of things doesn't make them a coherent whole.
theres border control for a reason...if foreign hitmen can get into the country, kill someone, and get away with it, whats the point of border control?
Border control is for plebs. Intelligence services can forge passports and use that to get in[1]. The way to stop assassinations is counter-intelligence.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/15/ireland-israel...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/15/ireland-israel...
Border control catching every hitman with the backing of an entire country… You need to stop watching CSI shows buddy.
Could of easily have been a local hitman
[deleted]
> whats the point of border control?
Harassment of ordinary people for the sake of security theatre.
Harassment of ordinary people for the sake of security theatre.
Not even security theatre, but maybe just mere nationalism/jingoism - countries create border controls to create a clearer "us vs them" mentality
thats what im saying...all those d***heads throwing away my perfectly legal shower gel without even looking, they should be ashamed of themselves this is happening
I went on a business trip to China some decade ago. On the way back, at the Shanghai airport, I forgot that I had an entire unopened tub of yogurt in my carry on. The security screening attendant just waved that through, like they don't give a damn.
All that hoopla about liquids on planes originates from America. 9/11 didn't happen in China, so they probably think it's just some foreign bullshit they have to implement, which they do half-assedly.
All that hoopla about liquids on planes originates from America. 9/11 didn't happen in China, so they probably think it's just some foreign bullshit they have to implement, which they do half-assedly.
"the West" is normally understood to be a certain collection of governments, people, ideas, and institutions. The police of Spain and Spanish intelligence would be included here. They should've made sure that the defected soldier could, if he wanted, remain totally anonymous.
The Spanish government is optimized to win elections in Spain, not to secure foreign operators who appear to have defected from selected countries. This sort of armchair security policy analysis skips over reams of complexity for the sake of shaking fingers at single events that get published.
The intelligence operations that succeed don't get published. If we decry western incompetence at each apparent Russian assassination, the FSB is achieving its goals.
The intelligence operations that succeed don't get published. If we decry western incompetence at each apparent Russian assassination, the FSB is achieving its goals.
Also, why do these guys always go to Russian enclave and tourist sea side towns? It is very easy to disappear in Spain, but not in the type of places where he was killed. If you want to flee from something, you go throw a dart somewhere under or above Madrid, far from the sea. No one wants to be there, there are no Russians and the post office cannot find you so you don’t even get mail IF you register there (which you wouldn’t if you are trying to hide).
For some reason people go to Marbella, or other well known mainland coastal places or, of course, Ibiza. Good for vacation (if you enjoy that type of thing), but how is it smart for disappearing of the fsb grasp.
For some reason people go to Marbella, or other well known mainland coastal places or, of course, Ibiza. Good for vacation (if you enjoy that type of thing), but how is it smart for disappearing of the fsb grasp.
Southern Spain is Russian organized crime playground. There are probably a lot of connections available there for all kinds of operators from Russia.
Exactly. So if you are trying to get away from the Kremlin, you wouldn't go there. And yet, he did.
You have a very simplistic view of things. I don't think Andalucia's Russian criminal underground is a very united or pro-Kremlin crowd.
> "Kuzminov opted for the Mediterranean town of Villajoyosa, population 36,000, including more than 800 registered residents from Russia. His home in exile was the ninth floor of a four-tower condominium cluster overlooking the beach, most of its tenants foreigners, the building manager said. A placard by the entrance extended a measure of confidence: “Facilities monitored by video cameras and security personnel.” In smaller print below read doorbell-ringing instructions, written in Spanish, English and Russian.
> "Along the street, Russian expatriates prayed at the nearby Orthodox church and shopped for groceries at a store named Baltica. The coastline had a reputation for Russian organized crime."
This guy wasn't even trying. He obviously didn't think that the threat was real.
> "Along the street, Russian expatriates prayed at the nearby Orthodox church and shopped for groceries at a store named Baltica. The coastline had a reputation for Russian organized crime."
This guy wasn't even trying. He obviously didn't think that the threat was real.
More infiltration: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-investigates-ru...
Embarrassing west fails to protect the data of such people.
Embarrassing that the west failed to protect Gonzalo Lira from a similar fate in Ukraine.
It's more embarrassing to become like Russia than to not be able to stop them.
The people who respond that no big deal he ended up dead because he had Bad Views because he voiced propaganda from the other side are not disproving, but rather underscoring this point.
It's more embarrassing to become like Russia than to not be able to stop them.
The people who respond that no big deal he ended up dead because he had Bad Views because he voiced propaganda from the other side are not disproving, but rather underscoring this point.
Who are these people, and why should I, part of the west, give a single shit about Russians running from the problems of their own country?
Because it’s the right thing to do?
When people are being assassinated in beach towns in Spain, society should do something. The people being assassinated, according to the article, are Russians who decided they don’t support Russia. “Running from the problems of their own country” is a time honored tradition of “The West”, according to every American elementary school curriculum explaining the founding of America.
The west claims to be enlightened lands of the free, so people who are part of the west, should be open to sharing that freedom with those who seek it, and protect them from those who seek to shut out freedom.
When people are being assassinated in beach towns in Spain, society should do something. The people being assassinated, according to the article, are Russians who decided they don’t support Russia. “Running from the problems of their own country” is a time honored tradition of “The West”, according to every American elementary school curriculum explaining the founding of America.
The west claims to be enlightened lands of the free, so people who are part of the west, should be open to sharing that freedom with those who seek it, and protect them from those who seek to shut out freedom.
National pride? What kind of nation allows another nation to spectacularly violate the most fundamental of their laws, deep in the homeland, with laughing impunity?
Russians running away from problems in their country are assets to the west. One of the things that makes the west great is its respect for individual freedom. At some level Russians know this: just compare the numbers of Russians trying to move to the West, compared to the numbers of westerns moving to Russia. We're better, and their population knows it en mass. So from a selfish point of view, it's in our interest to live up to this image. If a Russian says: I refuse to take part in Russia's aggression towards the West, we definitely should treat them extra well.
Also consider that another thing that makes the West great is its respect for rule of law. People who are in the west should have the right to walk down the street without fear of being assassinated, regardless of who they are or where they come from; this is a western value that I prize very much. If you start allowing "I don't care if a person gets illegally killed in Spain because he's a bad guy anyway", you're eroding the power of the West.
And finally, the problem that the west needs to counter act aren't just individuals of specific nationalities: it's an aggressive state and its institutions that have as stated goal to weaken us.
Let me know if you have more questions. As long as they're in good faith I'm happy to continue discussing.
Also consider that another thing that makes the West great is its respect for rule of law. People who are in the west should have the right to walk down the street without fear of being assassinated, regardless of who they are or where they come from; this is a western value that I prize very much. If you start allowing "I don't care if a person gets illegally killed in Spain because he's a bad guy anyway", you're eroding the power of the West.
And finally, the problem that the west needs to counter act aren't just individuals of specific nationalities: it's an aggressive state and its institutions that have as stated goal to weaken us.
Let me know if you have more questions. As long as they're in good faith I'm happy to continue discussing.
Because they’re often, not always trying to help the west / you ?
It's disappointing to see a brainless comment like that on HN. You don't need to be versed in geopolitics to understand that Russia is a threat to western Europe and people like this create a counterweight to the insane part of Russian society. You need dissidents and oppositionists to have a chance to build a normal country in Russia.
Europe is basically open boarders internally. So once you pass an external boarder you almost have free passage. This is a good thing. You won’t be able to stop people like this that are state backed even if you wanted to unless they mess up and do something stupid. There is also a rather large presence of Eastern European organized crime that would happily take a paycheck or other favors from Russia.
I think cases like that show that people aren't killing each other not because it's hard or enforcement and punishment prevents them. They don't do it mostly because they just don't want to. And if they want to, they want to kill people close to them which makes them easy to connect with the crime. Murderers who pick unrelated victims basically roam free. It's good that there's so few of them.
You say that it's a good thing but your examples suggest the contrary.
It's good because you can move to live and work anywhere in Europe.
It makes your serfdom in modern technofeudalism less geographically restricted. Makes you more free for some definitions of "free".
It makes your serfdom in modern technofeudalism less geographically restricted. Makes you more free for some definitions of "free".
You mustn’t have moved from an EU country to another.
Being an EU citizen, I drank the cool-aid about the freedom of move and work in any EU country, but the reality being that there are so many cultural, linguistic, administrative, legislative (and other) differences between a country to another that the overall experience is painful and except for very high incentives (big salary increase) the experience is not great.
I struggled less to relocate from France to China than I did to relocate from France to Germany.
Like everything in Europe, on paper it’s good, in reality, it’s often mediocre. Sad thing.
I struggled less to relocate from France to China than I did to relocate from France to Germany.
Like everything in Europe, on paper it’s good, in reality, it’s often mediocre. Sad thing.
It sounds like you've had some interesting experiences!
We might want to throw in cross border workers (frontaliers/Grenzgänger). That's a bit different. It can be very interesting financially even on the lower end of salary or qualifications. But that possibility existed before the EU and won't disappear after the EU.
We might want to throw in cross border workers (frontaliers/Grenzgänger). That's a bit different. It can be very interesting financially even on the lower end of salary or qualifications. But that possibility existed before the EU and won't disappear after the EU.
I'm relocating this year from Poland to Germany. I hope it'll be simple enough.
From what I heard, I need to rent apartment, do anmeldung, set up bank account, buy health insurance, pay monthly tv fee, register for taxes and file them every year. Then I hope to live without worries.
From what I heard, I need to rent apartment, do anmeldung, set up bank account, buy health insurance, pay monthly tv fee, register for taxes and file them every year. Then I hope to live without worries.
As another anecdote, I found relocating to Germany rather straightforward. There definitely was paperwork to be done, but it was well defined and easy enough to file (even if it was old-fashioned as Germany tends to be with bureaucracy).
I've moved inside the EU twice and have no idea what you're talking about. I literally moved from one capital to another, rented a place, started looking for a job. Literally.
Very few people actually do that, and the downside of open borders is enormous.
There are other benefits like trade and cross-border business opportunities without unnecessary impediments.
I'd say that contentious question of 'posted workers' is enough to make me ask myself if it's worth the sacrifice to have the possibility to live and work anywhere in Schengen/EEA/EU. But the other replies to your message include further valid points.
Remember that legal, economic immigration in Europe is possible without Schengen style free movement. It really wasn't that hard before.
I'm willing to study facts (numbers) that prove the benefit of free movement but they would have to show that legal, economic immigration without Schengen doesn't bring the same benefit. And legal, economic immigration without Schengen seems to have a lot less disadvantages.
Remember that legal, economic immigration in Europe is possible without Schengen style free movement. It really wasn't that hard before.
I'm willing to study facts (numbers) that prove the benefit of free movement but they would have to show that legal, economic immigration without Schengen doesn't bring the same benefit. And legal, economic immigration without Schengen seems to have a lot less disadvantages.
Ah yes the classic overmodeled threat landscape
I don’t have any insight on this particular case but I do happen to know a meaningful amount about how things like this tend to happen historically and there’s no reason to think differently here.
He almost certainly tried to get back in touch with friends and family who would have been under surveillance and they were able to pin him down to a specific location from there. From that point onwards the rest of what comes next isn’t particularly difficult to pull off.
He almost certainly tried to get back in touch with friends and family who would have been under surveillance and they were able to pin him down to a specific location from there. From that point onwards the rest of what comes next isn’t particularly difficult to pull off.
Right. When you're on the run, as he should have been:
Step One: You have to absolutely break all contact with your past. That's the first step. Family, friends, bank accounts, old email accounts, everything. (And, needless to say, if you're Russian and are trying to escape Russian agents, the last thing you do is hang out in Russian enclaves. So you break with your culture, as well, to the fullest extent possible.)
Step Two: You have to change your appearance; if you were clean-shaven and had long hair, you go bald and grow as much facial hair as you can comfortably manage; if possible you get some plastic surgery done; if you had tattoos, you remove them or discreetly cover them with new ink, no matter where they are.
Step Three: You go to a big city of 500k+ residents and work cash jobs-- dishwasher, line cook, nightclub bouncer, delivery driver, construction crew, etc. -- the possibilities are vast. If you're sitting on a cash reserve, don't work and try to make some money investing.
Step Four: No heavy drinking, and no drugs that might get you arrested and lead to a paper trail.
Do all that and you might live a normal lifespan. This playbook is how quite a lot of fugitives managed to get away with it, including, until quite recently and famously, this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Kirishima
Step One: You have to absolutely break all contact with your past. That's the first step. Family, friends, bank accounts, old email accounts, everything. (And, needless to say, if you're Russian and are trying to escape Russian agents, the last thing you do is hang out in Russian enclaves. So you break with your culture, as well, to the fullest extent possible.)
Step Two: You have to change your appearance; if you were clean-shaven and had long hair, you go bald and grow as much facial hair as you can comfortably manage; if possible you get some plastic surgery done; if you had tattoos, you remove them or discreetly cover them with new ink, no matter where they are.
Step Three: You go to a big city of 500k+ residents and work cash jobs-- dishwasher, line cook, nightclub bouncer, delivery driver, construction crew, etc. -- the possibilities are vast. If you're sitting on a cash reserve, don't work and try to make some money investing.
Step Four: No heavy drinking, and no drugs that might get you arrested and lead to a paper trail.
Do all that and you might live a normal lifespan. This playbook is how quite a lot of fugitives managed to get away with it, including, until quite recently and famously, this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Kirishima
Even if you do this, a state backed intelligence agency is going to eventually find you if they keep trying.
The idea "the west" can protect any single person from a state backed intelligence agency set on eliminating that person is totally delusional.
I would question what is going on in a person's head to believe this is even possible. Maybe if we incarcerated the individual under a fake name then put that individual in solitary confinement for life, this would work!
The idea "the west" can protect any single person from a state backed intelligence agency set on eliminating that person is totally delusional.
I would question what is going on in a person's head to believe this is even possible. Maybe if we incarcerated the individual under a fake name then put that individual in solitary confinement for life, this would work!
Strong disagree on this one, despite their best efforts to seem otherwise the intel folks aren’t magic and they have very real limitations in terms of how many resources they can throw into something like this. Not everyone is going to get the bin laden treatment.
But they have lots of experience in managing defectors as well, it’s almost always a case of poor adherence to security procedures that exposes people because as the person in hiding you actually have the much stronger hand not the people looking for you.
There’s a long history of people successfully doing this with little to no help in groups such as the IRA for example but when you have a government who will actively support you with things like documents, money, housing and training… your chances are actually very good that you will die of natural causes.
But they have lots of experience in managing defectors as well, it’s almost always a case of poor adherence to security procedures that exposes people because as the person in hiding you actually have the much stronger hand not the people looking for you.
There’s a long history of people successfully doing this with little to no help in groups such as the IRA for example but when you have a government who will actively support you with things like documents, money, housing and training… your chances are actually very good that you will die of natural causes.
Oh, I'm not so sure. Check out the Japanese guy at the link I posted. The Japanese equivalent of the FBI were searching for him like crazy -- his "Wanted" poster was seriously in every subway station across the nation -- and he managed to get away with it. Many such cases. There are lots of wanted men on the Interpol red list, and "state backed intelligence agencies" are actively searching for many of them. Some of them have been on the list for many years.
Intel agencies aren't magic, and they're not omniscient. If you're careful, the best tool they have is facial recognition, like Clearview, but that has yet to reach its full dystopian potential.
In OP, you've got a famous Russian defector who retired to a Russian resort town on the Spanish coast. A very boneheaded move, that; ofc he was going to get caught.
Intel agencies aren't magic, and they're not omniscient. If you're careful, the best tool they have is facial recognition, like Clearview, but that has yet to reach its full dystopian potential.
In OP, you've got a famous Russian defector who retired to a Russian resort town on the Spanish coast. A very boneheaded move, that; ofc he was going to get caught.
[deleted]
> there are enough of them that Wikipedia publishes a running list, at 51 names, entitled “Suspicious deaths of Russian business people (2022–2024).”
Why not 2014? The first part of the invasion of Ukraine was OK?
Why not 2014? The first part of the invasion of Ukraine was OK?
No, it's just that the dead Russians seem to start piling up with greater frequency after the 2022 invasion.
Is there anyone Putin won't uselessly kill? If you had told me in the 00's that we'd be right back to this Iron Curtain standoff, I simply wouldn't have believed you. Apparently progress is much more fragile than my younger self had thought, and it only takes one fallacy-of-yesteryear reactionary dipshit to kick a country backwards a generation and a half. What a waste of human potential.
Killing defectors is quite useful, since it sends a strong message to others planning the same.
Tactically, sure, it has an effect. But it just reeks of strategic impotence, like targeting all those Ukrainian civilians. Can't take a city? Settle for destroying an apartment building instead.
It's basically another point to the idea that this whole conflict being about Putin reenacting his trauma of the USSR and its collapse. During the cold war, punishing defectors or spending some soldiers lives in slow burn conflicts wasn't a significant waste of resources and it did shore up the lines of national identity. But what were relatively successful tactics back then have now been scaled up despite being completely inapplicable for the current reality.
It's basically another point to the idea that this whole conflict being about Putin reenacting his trauma of the USSR and its collapse. During the cold war, punishing defectors or spending some soldiers lives in slow burn conflicts wasn't a significant waste of resources and it did shore up the lines of national identity. But what were relatively successful tactics back then have now been scaled up despite being completely inapplicable for the current reality.
When I was a youngster in the nineties, I read Erich Maria Remarque's books and thought: "Wow! I'm so lucky the World has changed, people became smarter, more tolerant to each other, and none of this shit will even happen!"... And now I'm like in some of Remarque's stories :D
Dipshits like Putin and Hitler still need a fertile ground, in both cases chauvinism/imperialism within the population.
Beijinger(4)