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This is a list of people confirmed and alleged to have been assassinated by the government of the Soviet Union.[1] Some of the assassinations or targeted killings took place overseas.
Assassinations confirmed or generally accepted to have been committed by the Soviet Union.
| Target | Position | Date | City | Country | Perpetrator | Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fyodor Kokoshkin | Member of the First Russian State Duma | 1918-01-20 | Leningrad | Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee | Shot. | |
| Nicholas II | last Tsar of Russia | 1918-07-17 | Yekaterinburg | Cheka | Execution.[2] | |
| Francis Cromie | British naval attaché | 1918-08-31 | Petrograd | Bolsheviks | Killed in combat | |
| Alexander Dutov | Russian Cossacks | 1921-02-07 | Suiding | Bolsheviks | Shot.[3][4] | |
| Vladimir Nesterovich | Defected Red Army commander and intelligence officer | 1925-08-06 | Mainz | GRU | Poisoning.[5][6] | |
| Pyotr Wrangel | Russian White Army General | 1928-04-25 | Brussels | Soviet agent | Poisoning. | |
| Alexander Kutepov | White Army General | 1930-01-26 | Paris | OGPU | Heart attack during kidnapping.[7] | |
| Noe Ramishvili | former Prime Minister of Georgia | 1930-12-07 | Paris | Shot.[8][9][10] | ||
| Sergey Kirov | First Secretary of the Leningrad City Bolsheviks | 1934-12-01 | Leningrad | NKVD | Shot by revolver. | |
| Faizal Maksum | One of the leaders of the Basmachi movement | 1935-??-?? | Kashgar | Template:Country data East Turkestan | ||
| Nester Lakoba | Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Abkhaz ASSR | 1936-12-28 | Tbilisi | Template:Country data Georgian SSR | ||
| Andreu Nin | Leader of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) | 1937-06-20 | Alcalá de Henares, Madrid | Template:Country data Second Spanish Republic | Tortured to death.[11][12][13][14] | |
| Aghasi Khanjian | First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia | 1937-07-09 | Tbilisi | Template:Country data Georgian SSR | Shot.[15] | |
| Georges Agabekov | Defected OGPU agent | 1937-08-?? | Pyrenees Mountains | Unsure French or Spanish side in the Pyrenees Mountains | Unknown. | |
| Ignace Reiss | Soviet spy | 1937-09-04 | Lausanne | Strangulation and/or machine gun.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag
| ||
| Yevhen Konovalets | Leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists | 1938-05-23 | Rotterdam | Explosive hidden in box of chocolates. | ||
| Rudolf Klement | Senior official in the Fourth International and longtime confidant of Trotsky | 1938-07-13 | Paris | Unknown. Possible beheading.[16] | ||
| Zinaida Reich | Soviet actress | 1939-07-15 | Moscow | Stabbing. | ||
| Jadwiga Szeptycka | Archaeologist and ethnographer | 1939-09-27 | Prylbychi | Shot.[17] | ||
| Leon Trotsky | Soviet politician and Marxist revolutionary theorist | 1940-08-21 | Coyoacán | Exsanguination from attack by ice pick[18] | ||
| Nikolai Koltsov | Soviet biologist | 1940-12-02 | Leningrad | Poisoning.[19] | ||
| Mairbek Sheripov | Chechen nationalist | 1942-11-07 | Chechnya | Soviet security force | Soviet reprisal raid. | |
| Wilhelm Kube | Generalkommissar of Weissruthenien | 1943-09-22 | Minsk | Yelena Mazanik | Timed explosive. | |
| Solomon Mikhoels | Soviet actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre. | 1948-01-13 | MGB | Death staged as traffic accident.[20] | ||
| Khasan Israilov | Chechen nationalist | 1944-12-29 | Chechnya | Soviet security force | Unknown. | |
| Yurii Lypa | Ukrainian nationalist | 1944-08-20 | Shutova | NKVD | Tortured to death.[21] | |
| Konstantin Volkov | Soviet diplomat and NKVD officer | 1945-09-?? | Istanbul | Disappeared from his post. | ||
| Isaiah Oggins | American-born spy for the Soviet secret police | 1947-??-?? | Norilsk | Poisoned with curare.[22][23] | ||
| Theodore Romzha | Bishop of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Mukachevo | 1947-10-31 | Uzhhorod | Poisoned with curare.[24][25] | ||
| Wolfgang Salus | Czechoslovak Trotskyist | 1953-03-05 | Munich | KGB | Poisoned.[26][27] | |
| Alexander Trushnovich | Chairman of the Committee for Aid to Russian Refugees, leader of the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists | 1954-04-13 | West Berlin | Choked to death during botched kidnapping.[28] | ||
| Danylo Skoropadskyi | Leader of the Hetmanite movement | 1957-02-23 | London | Poisoned with air gun.[29][30] | ||
| Lev Rebet | Leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists | 1957-10-10 | Munich | Poisoning with vapor gun.[31] | ||
| Imre Nagy | Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary | 1958-06-16 | Budapest | Soviet show trial | Execution. | |
| Stepan Bandera | Leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists | 1959-10-15 | Munich | KGB | Poisoning by cyanide gas.[31] | |
| Nicholas Shadrin | Defected Soviet naval officer | 1975-12-20 | Vienna | KGB | Accidental forced overdose during kidnapping.[32][33][34] | |
| Mohammed Daoud Khan | President of Afghanistan | 1978-04-28 | Kabul | KGB / PDPA
|
Shot. | |
| Georgi Markov | Bulgarian dissident journalist | 1978-09-11 | London | KGB | Poisoning by ricin-filled pellet by Bulgarian umbrella.[35] | |
| Hafizullah Amin | President of Afghanistan | 1979-12-27 | Kabul | Targeted assault on the Tajbeg Palace (see: Operation Storm-333)[36][37] |
Assassinations alleged or suspected to have been carried out by the Soviet Union.
| Target | Position | Date | City | Country | Perpetrator | Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nikolay Vtorov | Russian industrialist | 1918-05-20 | Moscow | Bolsheviks | Unknown.[38] | |
| Juliet Stuart Poyntz | CPUSA member and soviet intelligence agent | 1937-06-03 | New York | NKVD | Possible execution.[39] | |
| Lev Sedov | Leon Trotsky's eldest son | 1938-02-16 | Paris | Shot. | ||
| Walter Krivitsky | Defected Soviet intelligence officer | 1941-02-10 | Washington, D.C. | Shot by revolver.[40] | ||
| Arkadi Maslow | Leading figure in the Communist Party of Germany | 1941-11-20 | Havana | Shot.[41] | ||
| Leonid Karas | Belarusian writer and journalist for Radio Liberty | 1954-09-?? | Munich | KGB | Drowning.[42] | |
| Abdurrahman Fatalibeyli | Defected Soviet army major; CIA agent and later chief of the Azerbaijani desk for Radio Liberty | 1954-11-22 | Munich | Strangulation. | ||
| Ilie Motrescu | Romanian writer | 1969-07-26 | Near Krasnoilsk | |||
| Alla Horska | Ukrainian Soviet dissident | 1970-11-28 | Vasylkiv | Shot and disguised as a murder-suicide.[43][44] | ||
| Sultan Ibraimov | Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan | 1980-12-04 | Cholpon Ata | Shot twice in the head. |
| Target | Position | Date | City | Country | Killer | Method |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indalecio Prieto | Minister of the National Defence | 1937 | Bilbao | Template:Country data Second Spanish Republic | NKVD | Unspecified.[14] |
| Georgiy Okolovich | Anti-communist dissident | 1954 | Frankfurt | KGB | Cigarette case disguised poison gun.[45][46] | |
| Nikolai Khokhlov | Soviet defector | 1957-09 | Frankfurt | Poisoning with thallium.[47][31] | ||
| Vladimir Kostov | Bulgarian journalist | 1978-08-26 | Paris | Poisoning with Bulgarian umbrella.[48] |