Dangers that stalk the enemies of Putin

There is no evidence that President Vladimir Putin is personally complicit in the tragedies that sometimes befall his enemies, but vocal opponents of his policies do have a habit of being caught up in often extreme "personal difficulties".

Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter with an undisguised hatred of the former secret service agent, was shot dead in the lift of her Moscow apartment block in October.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch who tried to set himself up in political opposition to Mr Putin, is now contemplating the consequences of his actions in a prison cell in Siberia.

Boris Berezovsky, a man who was once a powerful Kremlin kingmaker, had to flee Russia when a raft of charges that he said were trumped up were levelled against him. The Russian state media now portray him as an enemy of Russia.

Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine's pro-Western President, has also had a rough ride. He angered Mr Putin in 2004 when he beat Russia's preferred presidential candidate on a wave of anti-Russian rhetoric. His face remains disfigured from a mysterious dioxin-poisoning incident.

Less controversially Shamil Basayev, the Chechen rebel commander known as "the Butcher of Beslan", was killed in what the FSB called "a special operation" earlier this year. He was a terrorist. Then there is Mikhail Kasyanov, Mr Putin's former prime minister turned arch critic. Starved of Russian media coverage and lampooned as a Western puppet, prosecutors have tried to portray him as a criminal.

And there is the tale of Leonid Nevzlin, an Israel-based oligarch and a fierce Putin critic. He has an international arrest warrant for murder hanging over him and Moscow is trying to extradite him. The circumstances surrounding many of these "personal tragedies" are often so complicated that it is genuinely impossible to unravel the truth; both sides choose whichever version suits their own ideological corner.

Mr Putin's critics tend always to see the dead hand of the Kremlin while the Russian government writes such claims off as anti-Russian conspiracy theories.

That the poisoned Alexander Litvinenko is perceived as a "traitor" in Russia is beyond doubt. But nobody has so far presented evidence that he was actually poisoned by the FSB or, more far-fetchedly, on Mr Putin's orders. If past cases are anything to go by we will always be left wondering.

Sad fates of the president's critics

* Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in Moscow on 7 October. She was the author of several books that were highly critical of both Mr Putin and Russia's campaign to quell separatist sentiment in Chechnya. Nobody has been arrested in connection with her murder. Liberals believe she was killed by a heavy-handed state; the Kremlin believes that she was murdered to make Mr Putin look bad.

* Mikhail Khodorkovsky was once Russia's richest man but he began opposing Mr Putin. A Moscow court found him guilty of fraud and embezzlement and he is now in a Siberian prison.

* Leonid Nevzlin is a billionaire wanted for murder. He has incurred the Kremlin's wrath and now lives in Israel. He contends that the fraud and murder charges against him are fabricated.

* Boris Berezovsky is a critic of Putin who won political sanctuary in the UK. The Russian government regards him as a criminal and has unsuccessfully tried to have him extradited.

* Shamil Basayev was killed in July in "a special FSB operation". Few shed tears. Known as the Butcher of Beslan, Basayev was a terrorist who targeted civilians in his struggle for an independent Chechnya.

* Viktor Yushchenko, the President of Ukraine, still bears the facial scars of a horrific poisoning incident in 2004, a time when he was battling for the job against a pro-Russian contender.

* Mikhail Kasyanov was Putin's Prime Minister but was fired in 2004. He has styled himself as a presidential contender for the anti-Putin camp in 2008 but has been rubbished in the media.