VLADIMIR Putin’s right-hand man “Dr No” is the latest Kremlin figurehead to face serious questions over his future.
Dozens of top Russian officials have been mysteriously killed, demoted or sent packing across the globe in recent years amid regular mysterious purges.
Rumours have been swirling over the future of veteran foreign minister Sergei Lavrov after he reportedly spent the week frozen out of top-level meetings.
Lavrov is the latest Putin ally to be shunned as the despot increasingly battles with “loyalty” paranoia and frustration over continued losses in Ukraine.
Boris Karpichkov, a former KGB spy now living in exile in the UK, previously said the tyrant carries out these purges “in all layers of his government”.
He said the mistrustful leader has “methodically, thoughtfully and calculatingly” fired or jailed anyone who “got under his personal maniacal suspicions or raised doubts”.
As well as ad hoc imprisonments, the tyrant has been accused of orchestrating the killing of members of his inner circle he claims died of suicide.
Sergei Shoigu
Sergei Shoigu was Putin’s long-term ally and Defence Minister who served under Vlad for 12 years until he was mysteriously ousted following an alleged health scare.
Exiled Putin foe, Leonid Nevzlin, claimed that Shoigu had suffered a “massive heart attack” shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Another version of events claims that Shoigu was treated in intensive care.
Moscow had initially believed they could run through their neighbours within weeks by bulldozing their way into Kyiv to stake claim to the capital.
But instead, the illegal occupation of Ukraine quickly faltered with Putin’s men being met with heroic opposition troops serving Kyiv bravely.
Shoigu was one of the key players in the war with some speculating his failure to execute a successful invasion left him with serious questions needing to be answered.
He ended up being moved out of his role as Defence Minister and given a demotion to secretary of Russia‘s Security Council.
The Kremlin said the move was around the need for the defence ministry to stay “innovative”.
Nikolai Patrushev
One of Russia’s most hardline enforcers was Nikolai Patrushev – the former Secretary of Russia’s Security Council.
Putin’s and Patrushev’s careers have long intertwined ever since both served for the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the nineties.
In 1998, Putin was a chairman of the FSB, while Patrushev was first deputy, then first deputy director of the FSB.
West-hating former spymaster Patrushev served under Vlad for 16 years until he was suddenly pushed out as secretary.
A cabinet reshuffle saw him replaced by Shoigu in 2024 and moved across to shipbuilding.
Analyst Nikolai Petrov told POLITICO at the time the move was being seen as an “honorable retirement”.
Patrushev was seen as one of the leading voices in why Russia invaded Ukraine – even once speculating the war would last just three days.
Many speculated his delusion led to his demotion.
Roman Starovoyt
Roman Starovoyt, Putin’s transport minister for less than a year, was dismissed from his post on July 7 – just hours before he was found dead.
Starovoit was sacked amid unconfirmed rumours he was implicated in a major corruption scandal in Moscow.
Putin gave no reason for his dismissal, later denying he had lost trust in him.
Starovoyt’s body was found in a park on the edge of the capital with a single gunshot wound to the head.
The Kremlin was even accused of covering up the death of the sacked Russian minister after signs of torture were allegedly found on his body.
Investigators ruled it was likely he took his own life with a pistol found by the body.
One Telegram channel later alleged he died shortly before he was due to give statements in criminal cases in which he was a “key figure”.
He had been implicated in the alleged abuse of state funds earmarked for wartime border protection in Kursk region, where he was previously governor.
Officials caught in corruption scandals often go to prison, raising questions about if Starovoyt was set to be sent to the gulag by Vlad.
Yevgeny Prigozhin
Rebel warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin was declared dead in 2023 after his private jet was downed in a fireball crash.
The man, dubbed “Putin’s favourite chef” had furiously elbowed his way to a bigger seat at the Kremlin’s table with experts long suggesting his eyes were set on the top job.
An endlessly vocal critic of Russia’s military and Putin himself, he became the Kremlin’s greatest enemy when he launched an alleged coup in June 2023.
Putin gave an emergency address after the coup calling the Wagner Group’s “armed mutiny” a “stab in the back”.
Months afterwards, Prigozhin was declared dead after his private jet smashed down to the ground after an onboard explosion.
There is still yet to be any official confirmation of Prigozhin’s body ever being found – leading to speculation he could have actually survived altogether.
The theory is helped by the idea that Prigozhin previously faked his own death in Africa in 2019 before re-emerging just three days later.
Gennady Lopyrev
Top Russian official Gennady Lopyrev was found dead in a prison cell back in 2023 after he was jailed for ten years in 2017 by a military court after being accused of bribe-taking and illegal possession of ammunition.
He died of leukaemia despite being healthy in the days before his death, according to his family.
He had always denied the charges as rumours quickly swirled over why Moscow wanted to lock him up so badly.
The leading theory was due to him personally overseeing the construction of Putin’s clifftop Gelendzhik Palace, a private residence allegedly built with state cash.
He was also responsible for the dictator’s official residence Bocharov Ruchei in Sochi.
Until he was caged, he had been one of Putin’s closest security aides and was seen with the Russian president and then British premier Tony Blair in Moscow in 2002.
Ravil Maganov
Ravil Maganov, the head of Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil, “fell from a window” in 2022 after calling for “the soonest termination of the armed conflict”.
Lukoil had openly criticised Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – stoking fears of an internal conflict erupting.
The Russian oil chief died after falling from a sixth-floor window at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow, Russian reports claim.
It was unclear why he was even in the hospital in the first place.
Lukoil confirmed the chairman’s death – but said his death was a result of a “serious illness”.
Sergey Surovikin
At the start of his war with Ukraine, Putin promoted a ruthless new general to take charge of his disastrous and botched invasion – Sergey Surovikin.
He previously oversaw Russia’s bloody campaign in Syria when Moscow intervened in 2015 on the side of ex-President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
He was promoted to General of the Army in 2021 – one of only a handful of Russian officers to reach such a rank – before being placed in charge of troops in southern Ukraine.
He vanished from the military in 2023, just after the Wagner mutiny, and only reappeared earlier this year.
Putin had banished him to Algeria.
Surovikin is now reportedly the head of the group of Russian military advisers in Algeria and works on behalf of the Russian ministry out in Africa.
