Yet one death in America has already raised alarms. Vladimir Putin’s former media czar Mikhail Lesin was found dead in his Washington, DC, hotel room in 2015 with blunt force trauma to the head, neck, legs, arms, and torso.
Authorities announced that the death was an alcohol-related accident. But multiple current and former FBI agents and intelligence officials told BuzzFeed News last year that he was bludgeoned to death on the eve of a planned interview with officials from the Department of Justice, who had invited him to Washington to discuss the inner workings of the Kremlin-funded network Russia Today. Additionally, Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer and the author of the famous Trump dossier, provided a secret report to the FBI asserting that Lesin was bludgeoned to death by thugs hired by an oligarch close to Putin. The CIA has declined to comment on Lesin’s death.