So..who’s the next target on Putin’s hitlist?
DISSIDENT Russians who have sought sanctuary in London no longer feel safe.
Having fled to Britain in the past two decades to escape President Vladimir Putin’s iron fist, they feel it looming over them again in the enclave nicknamed Londongrad.
Some are afraid to leave their homes and are considering moving elsewhere since the Salisbury attack.
It brought back memories of the 2006 polonium poisoning of defector Alexander Litvinenko and has raised questions about other UK deaths including that of Putin’s sworn enemy Boris Berezovsky.
Dissidents believe Putin is settling scores to bolster his macho image ahead of his inevitable re-election in a few weeks’ time.
One businessman who attends the Open Russia club for exiles in Mayfair, London, said: “Putin has got away with it again, 10 years after Russian agents came to Britain and poisoned Litvinenko.
“We are all frightened. We’re wary of who we speak to in a way we might not have been before.
“If you’re talking to a fellow Russian you haven’t known for a long time, you wonder whether you can really trust them.
“All of us were suspicious when Boris Berezovsky was found dead at home. It seemed too convenient to be a suicide. We hope the British Government looks again at all of these mysterious deaths of Russians now.”
Open Russia was Perepilichnyy founded by Putin’s most vocal critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Once Russia’s richest man after gaining control of Siberian oil fields, he was jailed for a decade by the regime and now lives in Switzerland.
Russian author Yuri Felshtinsky, a close associate of Litvinenko, believes the biggest concern for dissidents in London is that their families are also now under threat.
He said: “It is becoming obvious there was a whole hunt after the family. It’s very unusual because prior to this I don’t know a case of them hunting down a family. They usually just go after a defector.”
Labour’s Yvette Cooper has called for 14 other deaths to be re-examined. They include that of exiled Russian banker Alexander Perepilichnyy, who died while out jogging in Surrey in November 2012.