Bekhoroshev was the editor of Moskovsky Korrespondent (Picture: E2W)
A ‘personal enemy’ of Vladimir Putin who first revealed the dictator’s relationship with Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva has died suddenly.
Grigory Nekhoroshev, 69, was editor-in-chief of a Russian newspaper which reported in 2008 that the Russian ruler planned to divorce his wife, Lyudmila Putina, and wed Kabaeva instead.
Nekhoroshev died in the Latvian capital of Riga, where he had lived in exile as a political refugee for 11 years.
Friends say he passed away at home in the Baltic NATO state after eating mushrooms he found in the yard of his home.
Though he was a fan of foraging, the mushrooms he collected turned out to be poisonous.
Friends described Nekhoroshev as having been ‘quite nervous’ while in Riga about a possible attack by assassins working for Putin.
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The bombshell report was later found to be true (Picture: E2W)
Another well-known Russian journalist based in Latvia, Bozhena Rynska, called his loss ‘incomprehensible’.
Igors Vatoļins, who saw Nekhoroshev shortly before he died, said the editor was ‘a not-old, not-ill person, full of ideas and plans’.
He added: ‘Nekhoroshev was the first to reveal the name of Putin’s common-law wife, rhythmic gymnastics champion Alina Kabaeva. Putin clearly did not forgive him for that.’
When the story ran in April 2008, owner Alexander Lebedev – a former KGB spy turned banker and entrepreneur – was forced to close the newspaper Moskovsky Korrespondent.
The secret services interrogated Nekhoroshev and issued threats, and he fled abroad before later returning to his home country.
Putin responded to the story on Kabaeva – 30 years his junior – by reprimanding ‘those who with their snotty noses and erotic fantasies prowl into others’ lives’.
Bekhoroshev’s death is being investigated (Picture: E2W)
He and Kabaeva ultimately denied the report – even though the report on their relationship, which continues to this day, is now known to be accurate.
Putin has still not publicly acknowledged his relationship with Kabaeva, now 43, but they are known to have two children, Ivan, 11, and Vladimir, seven.
While there is no hard evidence so far of foul play in Nekhoroshev’s death, multiple Putin enemies have died in suspicious circumstances.
In 2006, investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building, and ex-FSB operative Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London with radioactive polonium-210.
Oligarch Boris Berezovsky was found hanged in Britain in 2013, while opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot near the Kremlin in 2015.
Former Putin ‘chef’ and head of Wagner private army Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in 2023.
The following year, opposition politician Alexei Navalny was poisoned in a prison in the Russian Arctic.
Last week, artist Semyon Skrepetsky, 44, known for portraying the Kremlin leader as an absurd, bloodthirsty dictator, was shot dead in Poland.
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