---
# System prepended metadata

title: Fall of the Berlin Wall to 2015 from Senate Hearing 114-130
tags: [Hoaxlines, autocracy, Timeline, Russia]

---

# Fall of the Berlin Wall to 2015 from Senate Hearing 114-130 

This is a republication of the timeline read during [Senate Hearing 114-130](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-114shrg97882/html/CHRG-114shrg97882.htm), titled "Russian aggression in Eastern Europe: Where does Putin go next after Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova?" 

* Nov. 9, 1989: Berlin Wall falls.

* June 1991: Yeltsin wins first ever Russian presidential election.

* March 1997: Yeltsin appoints Boris Nemtsov first deputy Prime 
    Minister.

* July 1998: Putin is appointed head of the Russian Federal Security 
    Service (FSB).

* Nov. 20, 1998: Galina Starovoitova, a prominent liberal member of 
    Russia's Parliament, is shot to death in her St. Petersburg 
    apartment.

* Sept.-Oct. 1999: Putin sends Russian troops back into Chechnya in the 
    wake of a series of bomb explosions in Russia which are blamed on 
    Chechen extremists.

* Dec. 31, 1999: Yeltsin resigns, Putin becomes acting President.

* May 12, 2000: Igor Domnikov, a newspaper special-projects editor who 
    reported on corruption in the Russian oil industry, is hit in the 
    head and left lying unconscious in a pool of blood in his apartment 
    building.

* July 26, 2000: Sergey Novikov, owner of an independent radio station 
    that often criticized the provincial government, is shot four times 
    in his apartment building in Smolensk

* Sept. 21, 2000: Iskandar Khatloni, a reporter for the Tajik-language 
    service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, is attacked in his 
    apartment by an ax-wielding assailant.

* Oct. 3, 2000: Sergey Ivanov, director of an independent television 
    company, is shot five times in the head and chest in front of his 
    apartment building.

* Nov. 21, 2000: Adam Tepsurgayev, a cameraman who covered the Chechen 
    war, is shot dead.

* April 29, 2002: Valery Ivanov, editor-in-chief of a newspaper that 
    exposed government corruption, is shot eight times in the head at 
    point-blank range outside of his home.

* Aug. 21, 2002: Vladimir Golovlyov, a leader of the Liberal Russia 
    faction in the lower house of Parliament, is shot dead in Moscow.

* April 17, 2003: Sergei Yushenkov, a member of the lower house of 
    Russia's Parliament and an outspoken critic of Putin, is shot to 
    death outside of his Moscow apartment.

* June 2003: Russian Government cites financial reasons for axing last 
    remaining nationwide independent TV channel.

* July 3, 2003: Yuri Shchekochikhin, a vocal opposition journalist, 
    dies after falling ill with a mysterious disease.

* June 19, 2004: Nikolai Girenko, a prominent human rights defender, is 
    shot dead in his home in St. Petersburg.

* July 9, 2004: Paul Klebnikov, the first editor of Forbes magazine's 
    Russian edition, is shot dead as he leaves his Moscow office.

* Sept. 14, 2006: Andrei Kozlov, the First Deputy Chairman of Russia's 
    Central Bank who shut down banks accused of corruption, dies after 
    he was shot outside of a Moscow sports arena.

* Oct. 7, 2006: Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist and fierce critic of 
    the Kremlin, is shot and killed in her Moscow apartment building.

* Nov. 23, 2006: Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB officer who was 
    critical of Putin, died after being poisoned with radioactive 
    polonium-210.

* March 2, 2007: Ivan Safronov, a journalist who embarrassed the 
    country's military establishment with a series of exclusive 
    stories, is found dead outside of his home.

* July 15, 2007: Marina Pisareva, deputy head of Bertelsmann AG's 
    Russian publishinghouse, is found stabbed to death in her home west 
    of Moscow.

* Aug. 2008: Russia invades Georgia; Medvedev signs an order 
    recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two 
    breakaway regions in Georgia.

* Aug. 31, 2008: Magomed Yevloyev, owner of a popular news site that 
    reported on human rights, dies from a gunshot wound to the head 
    sustained while in police custody.

* Nov. 2008: Russian Parliament votes overwhelmingly in favor of a bill 
    that would extend the next President's term of office from 4 to 6 
    years.

* Jan. 19, 2009: Stanslav Markelov, a human rights lawyer, and 
    Anastasia Barburova, a young journalism student, are shot dead 
    midday on a busy Moscow street.

* April 2009: Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, an editor at the newspaper 
    Corruption and Crime, is beaten outside of his home; he passed away 
    from his injuries weeks later.

* July 15, 2009: Natalia Estemirova, a prominent human rights 
    journalist, is abducted from her home in Chechnya and shot dead.

* Nov. 16, 2009: Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who was jailed in revenge 
    for his uncovering of massive tax fraud, dies in prison; Olga 
    Kotovskaya, a TV journalist who critically reported on government 
    leaders, dies after falling from a window.

* Dec. 15, 2011: Gadzhimurad Kamalov, founder and publisher of a 
    Dagestani newspaper known for its editorial independence, is gunned 
    down outside of his office.

* March 23, 2013: Boris Berezovsky, once the richest of the so-called 
    oligarchs who dominated post-Soviet Russia and a close ally of 
    Yeltsin who helped install Putin as President, is mysteriously 
    found dead in his home outside of London.

* July 9, 2013: Akhmednabi Akhmednabiev, deputy chief editor of a 
    Dagestani newspaper, dies after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds.

* Dec. 2013-Feb. 2014: Amidst large proreform protests in Ukraine, 
    Putin offers to purchase $15 billion of Ukraine's debt and to 
    reduce the price of Russian gas supplies to Ukraine. Violent 
    protests flare, and by 2/22/2014 Yanukovych had fled Keiv.

* March 2014: President Putin signs a law formalizing Russia's takeover 
    of Crimea from Ukraine.

* May 11, 2014: Pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk declare 
    independence after unrecognized referendums.

* July 17, 2014: Malaysian flight MH17 is shot down and crashes near 
    the town of Torez in Ukraine's Donetsk region; 298 people die.

* July 31, 2014: Timur Kuashev, a journalist critical of Russian policy 
    in Ukraine, goes missing and is later found dead.

* Sept. 5, 2014: Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels sign a truce in Minsk.

* Nov. 5, 2014: Alexei Devotchenko, a popular Russian actor and 
    opposition activist, dies in unclear circumstances.

* Jan. 24, 2015: Russian-backed rebels launch an offensive in Mariupol, 
    Ukraine, killing 30 people and wounding 102 others.

* Feb. 11-12, 2015: Germany and France broker Minsk II cease-fire 
    between Russia and Ukraine.

* Feb. 19, 2015: Ukrainian soldiers retreat from Debaltseve after 13 
    are killed and 157 wounded.

* Feb. 27, 2015: Boris Nemtsov, a prominent critic of Putin's war in 
    Ukraine and a former Deputy Prime Minister under Yeltsin, is shot 
    in the back four times by an unidentified attacker in a car as he 
    crossed a bridge near the Kremlin.
    
    


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###### tags: `Hoaxlines` `Russia` `autocracy` `Timeline`