ELENA BARANOVSKAYA, IRINA FADEEVA, AND ILYA LYSAK
Hostages in the 2002 terrorist takeover of a Moscow theater staging the musical Nord-Ost. From events before and after, the three were indelibly linked to Anna Politkovskaya.
BORIS BEREZOVSKY
Former Kremlin kingmaker largely responsible for Boris Yeltsin’s 1996 reelection, and for Vladimir Putin’s surprise elevation to power. He thought he would continue to manipulate events, but Putin rebelled and the two became blood enemies. Berezovsky is the financier of the London-based Putin opposition. His team included Alexander Litvinenko, the defector and former KGB officer.
NIKOLAI KHOKHLOV
The first-known victim of deliberate poisoning by a nuclear isotope. A KGB officer, Nikolai defected in 1954 while on an assassination mission; three years later, he survived the KGB’s attempt to assassinate him. He regarded the Litvinenko assassination as a replay of his own experience.
PAUL KLEBNIKOV
Editor of Forbes Russia and American-born scion of Russian aristocracy. Klebnikov’s best-known work was his highly critical biography of Berezovsky, whom he called “Godfather of the Kremlin.”
ALEXANDER LITVINENKO
Former KGB officer, defector, critic of Putin, and member of Berezovsky’s London-based opposition political team.
DMITRI MEDVEDEV
Law professor, chairman of Gazprom, and Putin’s hand-picked successor as Russian president.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
Having grown up as a member of the Soviet Union’s privileged nomenklatura, Anna eventually became perhaps Putin’s fiercest critic, and a literary celebrity abroad.
VLADIMIR PUTIN
Anointed as president by an ailing Boris Yeltsin, who sought a successor who would protect his family from charges of corruption. Soaring oil prices under his rule transformed Russia from a broken country into an increasingly prosperous land with renewed global ambitions. But Putin also created an atmosphere of impunity for killers.