Russian exile who survived three Putin assassination attempts breaks his silence

Igor Sychev has suffered three car crashes – which he claims were deliberate – and received countless death threats against him and his family. He claims oligarchs are putting out kill orders against him – because he is trying to take a Russian fertiliser company to court

The Russian exile who claims he has survived three Putin-backed assassination attempts has spoken out on the threat of “physical elimination” he faces.

Igor Sychev, 48, most recently received a death threat promising to make his murder look like a “poison suicide”, after he fled Russia in March 2016. Igor had already suffered multiple threats against him and his family and real attempts at his life.

Now British police are looking into a supposed kill order which came from Putin’s cronies, following a phone call warning him that his family would be killed unless he dropped a legal case against a number of oligarchs. Recordings of the phone call have been submitted to British and Latvian police.

The father-of-two took the company he used to work for – PhosAgro, a Russian fertiliser company owned and run by oligarchs – to court for not paying him. He says he now lives in constant fear of being killed after a terrible nine years which saw him lose his job, home, and family. Igor worked for PhosAgro for two decades, helping the company settle high-profile tax disputes in 2014.