Russia Ukraine war, page-127553

Vladimir Milov does not mince words when it comes to Vladimir Putin, the man he once served as a deputy minister of energy.

"I think it's pretty clear that we are simply dealing with a murderer, with a person who thinks that it is OK to kill people. And he's been doing it all his life," Mr Milov told the ABC from Vilnius, where he now lives in exile.

The 50-year-old economist resigned from the Russian ministry in 2002 when Mr Putin vetoed his plans to break up the oil and gas giant Gazprom.

Since then, he has dedicated his life to exposing corruption and bringing democratic reform to Russia, working closely with three of the most prominent Russian opposition politicians, all of whom paid the price for daring to challenge Mr Putin.

Boris Nemtsov was murdered on a bridge near the Kremlin in 2015. Alexei Navalny suffered a near-fatal poisoning in 2020 and is now serving 11-and-a-half years in prison. Vladimir Kara-Murza survived two poisoning attempts in 2015 and 2017 and is now facing up to 25 years in jail on treason charges.

Mr Milov said the Russian president was behind the attacks on all three men.

In 2021, he was living with his family in Moscow, working as an economic adviser to Alexei Navalny, when he got a tip-off that it was not safe to head back to his apartment.

"When Navalny returned and we had a major protest rally, I got a lot of messages from my neighbours that there's about 20 policemen waiting for me on my doorstep.

"This is why I decided to leave the country,

"The FSB (Russia's Federal Security Service) took over and is commanding everything and they (the police) are being used for the purpose of political repressions, not fighting crime."