Former KGB Chief “Kills Himself”
The wonderfully wry British media strikes again with the BBC headline "Soviet ex-KGB chief Leonid Shebarshin 'kills himself'"
The wonderfully wry British media strikes again with the BBC headline “Soviet ex-KGB chief Leonid Shebarshin ‘kills himself’”
A former head of the Soviet KGB foreign intelligence branch, Leonid Shebarshin, has apparently shot himself dead aged 77, Russian prosecutors and police say.
Shebarshin was found dead with a gunshot wound at his flat in central Moscow, a ceremonial pistol by his side, police told news agencies.
A suicide note was reportedly also found at the scene.
A veteran of Soviet intelligence in South Asia and Iran, he led the KGB’s First Chief Directorate from 1989-91.
In 1991, he replaced coup plotter Vladimir Kryuchkov for two days as overall head of the KGB before he resigned himself, as the new post-Communist authorities set about dismantling the organisation.
Not a single word in the story casts doubt on the official story. But the scare quotes in the headline sends the signal that more than a wee bit of skepticism is warranted. Well played.
Let me just say that I find this story “interesting”.
Do you trust the Soviet… er Russian authorities about this sort of thing?
One is reminded of Terry Pratchett’s City Watch version of suicide.
Saying “Shorty” in a Dwarf bar, calling a troll “Rocky”, being in the wrong place at the wrong time or general acts of inattention that don’t warrant me actually caring about.
That headline writer has a future, though.