Something strange is going on. Who is killing Russian billionaires? Another Russian oligarch has been found dead. Reports suggests that he hanged himself, fell out of a window, slashed his wrists, was poisoned, murdered his whole family.
Last year, more than a dozen Russian oligarchs died in the space of nine months. Many of the deaths are suspicious with links to the Kremlin. This is sad Oligach, an investigation into these recently dead Russian billionaires. It's created by me jake Hanrahan and my colleague Sergey Slipchenko. Sad Oligarch is a h eleven production for Kulso Media and iHeartRadio. As the bodies of mangled PMC. Wagna Fights has piled up on East Ukraine's blackmut frontline, progosion began to crack.
His men were getting decimated. Ukrainian drawing footage shows dozens of mercenary corpses dotted around the smoldering ruins of their trenches, burned out vehicles and bullet riddle bodies. The myth of PMC. Wagner being an elite operator force was being debunked in real time as these videos spread across social media. Throughout May, Progosion released some footage of his own father.
Shah.
In a now infamous video first posted to Telegram, he angrily addresses the Russian military leadership. Progosion accused Sergei Shogu, the Defense Minister, and Valeri Garrisimov, the Chief of General Staff, withholding artillery ammunition from his fighters. He says, quote, that's direct obstruction, plain and simple. It can be equated with high treason and the battle for BAGHMUTI times more of my guy has died than should have. Listen to me,
you slim. These are somebody's father's, somebody's sons, and the skum who aren't given us the ammunition will be eating their guts in hell with seventy percent short on ammo. Shogu, Garrisimov, where's the fucking ammo? End quote? He was blaming them. In another video, stood in front of the camera with MPMC Wagner fighters surrounding him, Progosion appears increasingly frustrated. Several more videos like this will be released, with Progosion exploding in a fit of rage as he got more and
more daring in his criticism of the Russian state. This culminated on June twenty four to twenty twenty three, the beginning of the short lived Wagner Mutiny, footage of what was allegedly a Russian military strike on Wagner positions inside occupied areas of Ukraine was released via PMC. Wagner media Progosian claimed that dozens of his men had been killed
by his fellow countrymen serving the Russian EMOD. Not a single body is actually seen in any of this footage, though, just random shots of ruined positions with gunfire heard amongst the trees in the near distance. In fact, to this day, there's been no evidence any Wagner fighters were killed in this alleged friendly fire strike on their base, if it
even happened at all. Immediately, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a statement saying quote all the messages and videos spread on social media networks on behalf of progosing about the alleged strike of the Russian Ministry of Defense against the rear camps of the Wagner PMC are untrue and
are in information provocation. The Armed forces of the Russian Federation continue to carry out combat tasks on the line of contact with the AFU in the area of the special military operation ends quote now if you don't already know, the special military operation is what Russia has decided to call its awful invasion of Ukraine. Now, whatever happened, it served as the match that lit the fire on the PMC Wagner mutiny. Progosin had had enough. It was time
to ride on Moscow. PMC Wagner fighters turned down armored vehicles around, loaded their trucks with weapons, and drove over the Ukrainian border back into Russia. By the evening, armed Wagner fighters were seen on the streets of Russia's Rostov, just over Ukraine's border. They were actually warmly welcomed by the citizens there and pretty much the same with every Russian town they go on to take. This was quite shocking considering PMC Wagner is known worldwide and in Russia
for its immense brutality. As PFO explains, Wagner made a name for itself in blood.
Wagner's reputation for brutality really began and they definitely sort of played on it from an incident in twenty eighteen twenty seventeen with a Syrian man called Handy Booter, who they videoed murdering in an incredibly brutal fashion by videoing him pinned at the ground. What They smashed all his limbs with a sledgehammer, then they cut off his head with a trenching shovel, and then Setib's body on fire and dismembered it all on video.
This horrific incident took place in twenty seventeen at the Alsher gas plant near Palmira in Syria. In broad daylight, Handy Butter is torn to pieces, as if smashing the man in the head and groin with a sledgehammer and dismembering him with a combat shovel wasn't gruesome enough. PMC Wagner fighters then posed with the burned remains of parts
of Handy Booter's body. It's worth noting that the whole time this awful scene is going on, PMC Wagner fighters can be heard laughing in the background as Booter's limbs are smashed with the sledgehammer. They're also playing music as if this is some kind of celebration. Handy Booter had fled a sad regime forces and ran to the gas plant seeking help. He didn't realize Wagner had taken control of it and so he was tortured to death on camera.
It's one of the most vile sayings I've ever seen on video. They really played on that, and you know they've made the image of the sledgehammer one of their symbols. You know. Pregosion had it in his apartment when it was raided. They sent a sledgehammer to the European Parliament as well as a sort of fuck you gesture.
So not only did they butcher this poor man on camera. PMC. Wagner then used this brutality as a symbol to promote themselves. Believe it or not, it actually worked. Many Russian ultra nationalists fell in love with Wagner after this incident, and their ranks increased. The Wagner sledgehammer made another appearance in twenty twenty two in East Ukraine. An aging Russian fighter who tried to surrender to the Ukrainians was captured by PMC. Wagner.
They filmed themselves caving his head in with a sledgehammer as punishment. The video begins with the man laying down with his head balanced on its side on a brick, then comes down the sledgehammer, literally bashing his brains out.
The sledgehammering. Being as gratuitously violent as possible is part of the image. In terms of their other warkimes, I mean, they committed horrific acts in the Central African Republic in particular, there's drone footage even capturing them just shooting people passing by on the road, detaining random people who are unfortunate enough to stop buy on their bicycle near one of their bases, torturing them to death, stuffing their bodies into
termite holes in order to decompose them quicker. This whole complete destructions of villagers, lots and lots of theft and rape. The thing is and this is important to the context of the war in Ukraine. This isn't necessarily unique to Wagner. Like across the whole war in Ukraine, we've seen horrific war crimes committed on a really major basis by all
sorts of Russian military units. So I'm not sure if it's Wagner stick out for this so much that this is what the Russian military's behavior is like.
So as this battalion of war criminal mercenaries swept across Russia amidst its mutiny, riding all the way to Moscow. Incredible scenes were shared across the internet. Russian military began digging combat trenches around Moscow, wagnerfiers disarmed and took over Russian military basis, and open gun battles broke out between Wagner and the Russian military all inside Russia. Wagner vehicles were bombed from the skies and several fighters died on
each side as fishes. All seemed from the outside at least, this mostly looked to be the real deal. Progosian was steaming through checkpoints with over one hundred and eighty Russian soldiers refusing to interfere with the mutiny. At the borders, Wagner tanks surrounded government buildings. This was a big deal. The Kremlin frankly looked weak and they were beginning to lose control of the monster they had created, that is PMC. Wagner.
There was even a joke going round that the Russian military had gone from the second strongest armed force in the world to the second strongest in Russia before this mutiny. Progosion was the face of Wagner as opposed to the guy leading the ops. Remember, he had zero military background before officially associating himself with the private military contractor from in September twenty twenty two. Of course he was always involved, but this is when he officially said, yeah, it's me, I'm their guy.
I don't think he had any decision making role in the military activities of Wagner, although some of the defectors do say that he was on the phone quite frequently when they were in Syria, like demanding info on casualty counts and stuff. It's like a micromanager for different contracts. I don't believe there is even now any single company that's like, oh, this is Chubbercat Wagner. That doesn't exist. It's an enormously complicated network of little companies and shells
that he is the sort of connective tissue between. And like his role is this sort of super contractor going back and forth between all these different elements. And I think his connection to the leadership and his function is specifically close to Putin. I think we know that he used to call the presidential administration constantly. He was always on the phone with people at the presidential administration, even back in twenty fourteen, and that was proved by the
phone records that Blencat got hold of. And I think it's that combination of being from Petersburg, knowing Putin in a sort of very close level from doing the restaurant business. And also I think because there's probably seen as being a utility, he's someone usable because of his criminal background. He's got that element of like dirtiness that you don't need to worry about keeping clean.
It seems that after seeing the reality of his men getting slaughtered as opposed to doing the slaughtering, Progojin decided that his role as the middleman was over. With the backing of Ukin, he launched the PMC Wagner Mutiny. Whilst claiming his intentions weren't to actually violently storm the Kremlin, the writing was already on the wall. It was too late. Putin had been humiliated. He went on to National TV and addressed the nation, saying that Progosion was a traitor.
Putin said, quote, I've spoken with commanders on all fronts. I've also addressed those who've been deceived or coerced into a criminal adventure, driven onto the path of a serious crime, armed rebellion end quote. He essentially put all PMC Wagner fighters on notice. Then, after twenty five four hours of aunt pursuit into the Capitol, the order came from Progosion that the mutiny was suddenly over. Just like that, the flame went out. Him and his fighters were just two
hundred kilometers from Moscow when this happened. In an audio statement, Progosion said, quote, right now, the moment has come when the blood could be spilled. Therefore, understanding all the responsibility for the fact that Russian blood will be spilled on one side, we are turning our convoy around and going back to our base camps according to the plan ends quote Okay, Progosion, that was definitely the plan. So who knows what Putin dangled over Progosian to reverse this wild
excursion into Russia, But whatever it was, it worked. PMC. Wagner convoys turned around and made their way back to Ukraine, where they plan to carry on fighting Russia's invasion. After the mutiny, though, Progosion was exiled to Belarus and his fighters were put on a short leash by the Russian mod a month later. As we know, Progojin and Ukin
were toast dying in the plane crash. And what's interesting is that from the footage it's clear that the jet they were in didn't just crash, it was shot out of the sky. A missile took out Progogin's jet as he flew from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. The Russian authorities said they're investigating, but who are they going to investigate? I think it's quite clear who the prime suspect for this might be. Putin is a violent man obsessed with his own pride and self image as the strong man
of Russia. There's just no way Progosing was going to be allowed to get away with challenging him on the world stage the way he did. Putin essentially then showed the whole world that he is so willing to step over the line that he will literally have his former comm raid shot out of the sky over Russian airspace. The reason I think this incident with pregosion is so important is that it casts the other sad Oligach deaths
in a different light. That is, if the Kremlin was at all involved, which remember we don't know for certain, but if the Kremlin was involved in these deaths, it suddenly makes the idea that the government killed people with frog venom poisoning, family annihilation, and mysterious suicide seem a lot less absurd. After all, none of these are quite as wild shooting a jet out of the sky as it flies out from your own capital. This is the
final episode of sad Oligach. We've covered the extremely violent or extremely unusual deaths of a dozen filthy rich Russians, all of which died in rapid succession in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three. None of these cases are clear cut. The majority of them are unsolved, and the information on them becomes sparser as the deaths keep happening. Miu and Sergei Slipchenko have spent twelve months investigating all of this, with limited resources and many people scared to
speak to us due to the Kremlin's iron grip. Still though, we've put together a comprehensive project showing who's been killed, how they're connected, and why the deaths are so enigmatic. Many of the people we covered in this series were generally not good people. However, their strange, interconnected deaths I believe, reveals that something very dark is going on inside Putin's Russia, and it's happening quicker and more violently than ever before.
So who do we think is these Russian billionaires and multi millionaires. Surgery and me had one last conversation about this, having reviewed all our work from the past year. We started working this year ago now and it's come to the end. And obviously we've been very careful not to try and jump to conclusions and put too much of
our thoughts into what's happening. I think some people listen to this and they hear some of what's happened, and they're just like, come on, clearly it's this, and we don't we just you know, you can't we don't know. We can't say it looks fishy. It might look like X, Y and Z, but we can't say. So I think, now let's just let's just, you know, let's just kind of suspend that for a second, and I guess, like,
what what do you think is happening? After looking into these dozen or so mysterious deaths, what do you think is going on?
I definitely see huge pattern, huge pattern, especially with some of the cases like the family annihilations happening back to back. I don't want to point to anything and be like, yeah, I know, I don't have any insider information that like
somebody's confirming it. I don't think we will for the most part, because a lot of these are in Russia, and there's no way, I mean, unless there's some kind of like Soviet type collapse and then everything is opened up, you know, this information that these reports and stuff that are like not being published or being altered and stuff. Until we get something really solid, we can't ever really say like, yeah, this is what it was for sure.
But I think with this podcast, what you can kind of look going through it is there's definitely a pattern that almost seems in a way methodical. Right. These methods are pretty similar, you know, falling out of windows or framing it as a murder suicide. They have a pattern to themselves. And also all these connections to the oil gas industry is kind of hard to ignore, right. The guys are either worked in made their fortune or worked along side somebody in the oil and gas industry, and
its just like it's so interconnected. It's kind of hard to believe that like nothing is happening outside of that. Again, we can't prove who it is. I was I would say, you know, I think the likely perpetrators are either the Russian government covering things up, or it's something between like business partners essentially.
You know.
I think the biggest pattern that I kind of see from this, if I have to theorize, it seems like their Russian government is seeing that money is leaking really hard from their military complex essentially.
Right.
I think the invasion in Ukraine kind of showed just how rotten the entire military, Air Force, navy are. You know, like there's reports of them having to use like World War Two rounds when on paper they've been producing military munitions, shells, tanks, you know, everything like NonStop year tier, and then you find out there's no AMMO, or they're lacking AMMO or
it's just like getting their because they're so dysfunctional. And I think maybe the Russian government has started looking into, you know, where is this issue coming from, and a lot of these things where they see like money is missing or if funds are misappropriated, they basically charge you with treason. I think that's because that's how they see it. They see it as like you're betraying your country. You know,
you're betraying the military, betraying the war effort. It's not just like Oh, you committed a crime, you go to jail. It's kind of like it's more like almost tribal or gang like, right, you betrayed the tribe, and now you're going to pay for it. And I think somebody going to jail is a much softer message than somebody not just dying, but their entire family being murdered.
I think that's a good point. And I think this idea of trees and it's trees and it's trees, and not just within the military, but within business dealings whatever. Especially since Russia invited Ukraine, I feel like it's possible that this treason idea has then been taken to the end degree and it's like, okay, then we're not just doing random hits. We're convicting people and executing them for treason willbeit in an extra judicial way, as opposed to going through cool or whatever.
I don't know, you know how gangs ran Russia and basically incorporated themselves into the government. These killings really remind me of that, like organized crime. You know, you betrayed the family and now you you know, you pay with
your life. That's what it really reminds me of. I don't want to you know, push like cartoonish kind of villainization of Russia, but they definitely have this mafia gang background to them, and I don't think it's too wild to think that it carried on into how you know, the government operates, how death has Bell operates, and something that they would do, Like I wouldn't put it beyond the realm of reality. I think it's maybe hard to kind of fathom that and think of it as like, yeah,
that's what happens day today. But I think it's a very real possibility.
No, definitely, And we've seen it with Gazprom quote unquote security turning up in black cars and literally removing police officers from the scene of a quote unquote suicide and taken over the investigation. How the hell does that even happen. How can a private company then trump a potential murder investigation. It doesn't make sense. But no, what you said there
is right, We're not. We've tried very hard not to like come up with this ridiculous, cartoonish boogieman Russia stereotype that is very popular amongst the media right now because of the invasion of Ukraine. It happens in every country like America, is up to its eyes in corruption its government.
My country England is an absolute joke. Like our prime minister just like awarded a huge business contract to his actual family and a law was shifted to a commodate that, and it's like, well, okay, well that is it's pretty much oligarchy in a sense. You know, it's just oh, we don't do that in the West. We absolutely do. We just have different methods and different culture around it.
But in this instance, I think Russia is quite unique in that it's very kind of balls out with the violence of it, if you know what I mean.
Yeah, for sure. You know, up to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia really tried to be more careful with like politics and stuff and kind of their image as a country. They always frame themselves as the victim of the of that of being like oppressed by the US and NATO, and I think now that they should up invaded and they're very obviously committing human rights violations like war crimes. I think they're kind of like, screw it, we don't need to upkeep anything. Plus, all the attention is on
Ukraine right now. You barely see anything about this, you know, so it's like it seems like a good time to clean house, so to say.
If you look at the history of Prutin as well, before he was even in the position of power that he's now, similar things like this have happened to other people around him. Not on this degree, not this many times, not this many people, but similar things have happened as is with several different Russian politicians. And I agree with you. I don't think it's Putin sat there in his palace being like this one hit this guy is what to do.
I just think he has bred a culture of totalitarian violence within the Kremlin, and it possibly has given a green light to people to be like, hey have a it now.
Yeah, for sure, this is not new. I mean all throughout throughout his I don't know, reign or his leadership. You've seen journalists die. It was just much maybe it's like, you know, the ones that were public were much much rare. There was the journalist who was killed I forget her name. There was the politician who was killed like just straight up in front of Parliament in daylight. He was shot in the back. But like, this is nothing new. It's not like all of a sudden this is a new
for nomenal that's happening. This has been happening for a long time. The Chichen War was started by apartment bombings. That is quite convincingly proved to be like through the fasbad conducting those apartment bombings, right, And I just think maybe if you're not in this, like if you're not into this world and you're not really looking into it and reading stuff, it may seem like it comes out
of nowhere. But I think if you followed this, if you followed Russia and just how it operates, it kind of it's not that out of the norm or that far fetched for these things to be happening.
Yeah, and you're on about Boris Nemstov who was shot on the bridge in the back. I was talking to a friend about this and something quite chilling that he pointed out was if you look at the location where he was shot and where all the press forwards were then shot with the flowers with the frame pictures, because you know, Nemstov was loved by a lot of people, if you look at the photos, then the Kremlin is just in the background of every shot. It has to
be because of the positioning. And his theory was, yeah, they made that on purpose. You can't just wander around and just randomly kill people in that area because you know, it's essentially meant to be, in a way, the kind of safest place in the city because that's where the government is, right. And if you look at those images, there's one very specific one where a guy is like laying down some roses and just in the background you can see the Kremlin there the whole time, and there's
something very eerie about that. And when I was looking at that, I then kind of looked at some of these other killings, and you know, you don't want to jump to conclusions, but it's like, yeah, I definitely think there's certain significances to these things. Again a pattern, like you said, for example, Pregosion was killed a month to the day after his after his little mutiny. It's very coincidental.
Yeah, for sure, I can definitely see that. You know, part of part of this is I think with Pregosion, like, I don't think it was accidental. I like the day that that had happened, it seems like very symbolic and very much of this is what you get, like if you mess with me kind of thing, because I think Putin was very much embarrassed and humiliated by the fact that Wagner could even threaten Kremlin, right. I think that was a huge blow to his ego, to his image.
And I think doing it like you said, a month to the day afterwards is definitely symbolic and like kind of showing like this is what happens if you mess with me.
It's almost like, hey, here's a signature, which I feel like in some of these cases, there's perhaps you could argue a sign of a signature on some of these things.
Yeah, I think I think Russia's done this a lot, you know, with a lot of the pop poisonings in England, like they kind of don't really care if they leave a trace to the point where always seems like they want to. They kind of want to, you know, like laugh in like the West face like we can do this and look at you not doing anything. Like a lot of these deaths happened. The guys went back to Russia and they were on TV essentially marking the West and saying like, oh, we were just in vacation, we
got away with it. What are you going to do?
So let's end this with three different theories as to what might be happening in Russia regarding the sad oligarch deaths. And remember I am not saying any of these are true. You can decide first theory. Post Soviet Russia bred a class of oligarchs who made their money through lawlessness and extortion. They then swapped their bandit hats for suits and loafers once the money was made legit through government schemes, many of which were run by people of the same ilk politics,
business crime. A ven diagram of early post Soviet Russia. First forward thirty years or so, and the seeds are in full bloom. What was the start of a new chapter for Russia is now solid ingrained and under control of an increasingly violent dictator with great wealth and power. If anyone agitates against Putin, he deals with them in the way any authoritarian does. He crushes them, either metaphorically
or literally. Everyone who came up and made bank in this era is in some way associated with his circles, because that's how it is. You can't be on the take against the Kremlin, not for long anyway. Through this culture of big money and totalitarianism, everyone is prepared to snake each other at any moment. So when Putin started his war on Ukraine, which caused a gigantic geopolitical shift, really needed to be dealt with. Various oligarchs, by definition,
are intermingled with the politics of Putin's Russia. They're powerful too. Putin doesn't like that the Kremlin and its various tentacles are given a green light for a scorched earth policy on these people if they don't play board. Various different groups ready to do dirty work for the Kremlin or the best price immobilized. It's not the first time. In keeping with the USSR, the art of assassination that looks
like an accident is employed. After all, they want to warn everyone to keep in line, but they can't be seen to the public to be going full mask off monster on their own associates. It looks unruly, and so the Kremlin has been rapidly killing its powerful detractors in a bid to further consolidate power like never before, as Russia enters new grounds of global pariah. Second theory, oligarchs themselves criminals by nature, are using the distractions of the
Ukraine war to deal with rivals. It helps business, It keeps things in order, and it might even put you in Putin's good books. With all the money in the world, these people can hire whole teams of hitmen if needed. They don't want to go to prison and they don't want to be seen as cold blooded killers, so the higher people that will make it all look like a bit of an accident. Third theory, Russian oligarchs are just very clumsy, prone to accidents, and regularly depressed. This has
been sad Oligarch. Thank you for listening. Before we end this, I just want to speak briefly about my friend and colleague on this project, Sergey Slipchenko. You've heard him throughout the series, adding much needed context and digging up information that's not easy to find. Sergi himself is Ukrainian. In fact, I was in Kiev with him just days before Russia invaded. His home was uprooted and he had to leave. This project is understandably quite personal for him, but despite this,
he's never once let that cloud his judgment. There would be no sad Oligach without him. Sergi is an excellent journalist and he has a new project starting soon investigating the often overlooked geopolitical shifts in the Arctic. It's going to be good, so check it out at www. Dot arcticpod dot co. Sad Oligach is a H eleven production for Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio, hosted, produced, researched and edited by me Jake Hanrahan and Sergi slipchenkok Co produced
by Sophie Lichtman. Music by Sam Black, artwork by Adam mcdoyle, sound mix by Splicing Block. Go to Jacanrahan dot com for more information.
Another Russian Holigark has been found dead. The report suggests that he hanged himself bell out a window, slashed his wrists, He was poisoned, murdered his whole family. Something strange is going on.