Guns, drugs, gold bars, unconvincing wigs and a framed photo of severed heads — Russian state media this week deluged audiences with images they said were taken during a raid on the St Petersburg home of Wagner warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin.
But the attempt to discredit Prigozhin appeared mild in comparison with the retribution meted out to other opponents of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, such as the poisoned former spy Alexander Litvinenko and murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya.