My life as a pro-Putin propagandist in Russia’s secret 'troll factory'

Lyudmila Savchuk tells how she was ordered to blog about ‘great Putin’ and ‘bad opposition’ to the Kremlin

When Lyudmila Savchuk heard about the assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov earlier this year she was shocked and saddened.

“I felt the bullets between my own shoulders,” she said, recalling how the Kremlin critic was gunned down near Moscow's Red Square in February.

Yet within hours of Mr Nemtsov's death, Ms Savchuk and her colleagues were going online to pour bile on the former deputy prime minister and claim he was killed by his own friends rather than by government hitmen, as many suspect.

“I was so upset that I almost gave myself away,” she said. “But I was 007. I fulfilled my task.”

The "007" role that Ms Savchuk refers is her own extroardinary one-woman spying mission, which has lifted the lid on the propaganda machine that props up the rule of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president.

Freelance journalist Lyudmila Savchuk (Dmitri Beliakov/The Telegraph)

Russian supergrass 'poisoned after being tricked into visiting Paris’

By Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter - A Russian supergrass was lured to his death by an assassin who tricked him into leaving his English home for Paris where he was poisoned, it was claimed last night.

Alexander Perepilichnyy collapsed and died outside his home on the high security St George’s Hill estate in Weybridge, Surrey, hours after returning from Paris.

According to the latest theory, Mr Perepilichnyy was enticed to the French capital by an associate of a Russian crime gang, who slipped a poison derived from a rare and deadly plant into his food or drink.

During the four-day trip, Mr Perepilichnyy apparently booked two hotel rooms – one at a luxury, landmark hotel and the other at an ordinary three-star hotel. He also spent more than £800 in a Prada designer fashion store, although – adding to the mystery – whatever he bought there he never took home.

A French magistrate is understood to have begun an investigation into his possible murder, raising the prospect that Mr Perepilichnyy was poisoned at one of the hotels, in a chilling echo of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, in a London hotel.

Chechen leader Kadyrov lashes out at criticism of the forced marriage of a 17-year-old girl in Russia

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov responded to criticism of the forced marriage of 17-year-old Kheda Goylabiyeva to the republic's police chief, Nazhud Guchigov — who is 30 years her senior — by telling men to "lock in" their wives to prevent them from posting on WhatsApp.

The BBC reports that the Chechen warlord turned key Kremlin ally, who was present at the wedding, said:

"Stop. Behave like Chechens. Family honour is the most important thing. Do not write such things. Men, do take your women out of WhatsApp. Lock them in, do not let them go out, then they will not post anything."

The story has garnered fierce criticism in Russia since the Russian investigative paper Novaya Gazeta reported that Goylabiyeva was being forced to marry a local official. He reportedly threatened her parents, demanding that he marry her on the day of her 17th birthday, May 1, and even warned that he would kidnap Goylabiyeva if she attempted to leave her house.

Photos from the wedding last weekend quickly spread across social media, with commenters noting that the bride-to-be looked devastated throughout and kept her eyes fixed on the floor.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov responded to criticism of the forced marriage of 17-year-old Kheda Goylabiyeva to the republic's police chief, Nazhud Guchigov — who is 30 years her senior — by telling men to "lock in" their wives to prevent them from posting on WhatsApp
.
The BBC reports that the Chechen warlord turned key Kremlin ally, who was present at the wedding, said: "Stop. Behave like Chechens. Family honour is the most important thing.
"Do not write such things. Men, do take your women out of WhatsApp. Lock them in, do not let them go out, then they will not post anything."

The story has garnered fierce criticism in Russia since the Russian investigative paper Novaya Gazeta reported that Goylabiyeva was being forced to marry a local official. He reportedly threatened her parents, demanding that he marry her on the day of her 17th birthday, May 1, and even warned that he would kidnap Goylabiyeva if she attempted to leave her house.

Photos from the wedding last weekend quickly spread across social media, with commenters noting that the bride-to-be looked devastated throughout and