The danger is all too real: you’re standing on the 16th floor of a tower block in St. Petersburg, lingering slightly too close to a window, when blammo, unbidden and apropos of nothing, you plunge to your gory death. As happened last week to Marina Yankina, a key figure in funding Putin’s war in Ukraine. And to Pavel Antonov, the wealthiest deputy of the Russian Duma, in December. And to oil tycoon Ravil Maganov, last September. When outspoken mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin lashed out at the Russian Ministry of Defense this week, one feared that he, too, might be positioned dangerously close to a casement.
But the latest flurry of mysterious deaths of Russian V.I.P.’s—oligarchs, pro-Kremlin editors, senior Lukoil officials, Russian sausage kings—is not confined to foolhardy window lingerers and balcony fetishists. Some of the loyal Russians who have succumbed in recent months are people who have taken the bold and ill-advised initiative to use the stairs (Who needs polonium when you have hard, concrete stairwells?), go to a restaurant (“What’s that new flavor in the borscht?”), or get on a boat (“Alone, alone, all, all alo…”).
