Trove of horrifying evidence that proves why America must NOT dismiss suspicions about Lindsey Graham's shock death: Putin expert reveals exactly how Russian agents could have done it

By TOM LEONARD, US CORRESPONDENT Published: 01:09, 14 July 2026 | Updated: 01:16, 14 July 2026 It had been a tough trip packed with meetings in Europe and Ukraine, but 71-year-old Senator Lindsey Graham had returned home tired but triumphant in his long quest to defeat the Russian invaders. Last Friday he stood outside St Michael's gold-domed monastery in Kyiv and described the 'magic moment in time' that was now offered to consolidate international support for embattled Ukraine and push through new 'hellish sanctions' against Vladimir Putin's thuggish regime. A toughened version of the Russian sanctions bill appeared to have secured presidential support. 'This is a big effing deal,' the South Carolina leader told Senate colleagues. Little more than a day later, however, he was dead, emergency responders summoned to his Capitol Hill on Saturday night but failing to save the life of the veteran Republican politician who'd just turned 71. Graham, who had just spoken to President Donald Trump about his trip, had complained that he was feeling unwell but insisted he wouldn't seek medical attention until he'd appeared the following morning on NBC's Meet The Press. His sudden death after what his office initially described as a 'brief and sudden illness,' has predictably come as a huge shock in Washington DC. However, while a preliminary medical examination reportedly indicates that he likely died after a tear in his aorta - a so-called aortic dissection - related to the hardening of his arteries, some believe there may well be a far darker explanation for his sudden demise. Graham was not only an outspoken supporter of Ukraine and opponent of the Putin regime, but he was also someone who had the ear of the US president. Easily the most pro-Ukraine member of Trump's circle, he was exactly the sort of western politician who the Kremlin could well do without. Last Friday, Senator Lindsey Graham stood outside St Michael's gold-domed monastery in Kyiv. Little more than a day later he was dead Graham was an outspoken supporter of Ukraine, easily the most pro-Ukraine member of Trump's circle He was also an opponent of Vladimir Putin's thuggish regime His abrupt death so soon after returning from a Ukrainian capital heaving with Russian agents determined to nip Graham's 'big effing deal' in the bud has inevitably fuelled speculation that Moscow may have been involved in his demise. The timing and the location, some say, could not have been more suspicious. Sir William (Bill) Browder, the Anglo-American financier who has become one of Putin's most vociferous critics, told the Daily Mail today that it was 'most important' that US investigators ruled out foul play. With Graham's death causing huge ructions in Washington DC, Browder said he was concerned that the US authorities might be distracted by other issues and 'might not feel the urgency to do the most extensive tests to make sure that this was a death by natural causes.' He went on: 'I've been dealing with Putin for more than two decades and he has a long history of murdering people who he doesn't like through different means but specifically through poison - and poison that's not obvious.' He ticked off just a few of the Putin opponents and critics who are widely believed to have been poisoned by the regime, including anti-corruption activist and political prisoner Alexei Navalny, former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko and investigative journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin. Browder noted that the Russians allegedly don't flinch from targeting western politicians, too. Canadian politician Irwin Cotler, a former minister of justice, said he was poisoned during a 2006 official visit to Moscow. Like Senator Graham, Cotler had been a longtime thorn in Putin's side: as a human rights lawyer, he had represented prominent Russian dissidents Natan Sharansky and Andrei Sakharov as well as advocating for other Putin opponents who'd fallen foul of the regime. Cotler said he had dinner at a Moscow restaurant but quickly began to feel ill. 'I felt sicker almost than I ever had before in my life. I began to throw up blood,' he said. When he called his hotel's front desk and asked for a doctor, cleaners were instead sent to his room in what could have been an attempt to waste valuable time. He then phoned the Canadian embassy which sent a doctor who accompanied him to a private hospital catering for foreigners. Russia conducted no investigation into the incident and Cotler was never given a medical diagnosis although he was convinced it was no random case of accidental food poisoning. Experts said the fact that the Canadian was never questioned by public health officials indicates that the Russians didn't consider it food poisoning either. Sir William (Bill) Browder told the Daily Mail today that it was 'most important' that US investigators ruled out foul play Graham's death caused huge ructions in Washington DC Canadian politician Irwin Cotler, a longtime thorn in Putin's side, said he was poisoned during a 2006 official visit to Moscow According to Cotler, he was chatting with Russian Embassy officials in Ottawa in 2010 who asked him why he hadn't visited Moscow recently. When he told them that he'd been poisoned on his last visit, one of them replied: 'Sorry about that. It was a mistake. It won't happen again.' Luzius Wildhaber, a Swiss judge and the former president of the European Court of Human Rights, claimed he was poisoned when he visited Russia a year after Cotler's trip. Wildhaber, who had been a classmate of Cotler at Yale Law School, said he became violently ill and was hospitalized in Moscow. He said Russia targeted him for upholding complaints from Chechen human rights activists. Others have been permanently damaged or killed by alleged poison attacks carried out by Russian intelligence services. In 2004, the pro-western Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned in a restaurant with a dioxin, one of a group of highly toxic chemical compounds that are a common environmental pollutant. He survived but his face was left permanently disfigured. Two years later, Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB and FSB agent died in London in one of the most notorious Kremlin poisoning cases. Litvinenko had become a British citizen after being granted political asylum in 2001. He became an outspoken Putin critic, advising British intelligence and accusing the Russian state of having links with organized crime. He even accused Putin of being a pedophile, saying the KGB had known about it for decades. In November 2006, he fell ill just hours after meeting two former Russian agents for tea at a smart hotel in London's Mayfair neighborhood. He died three weeks later after becoming the first confirmed victim of lethal poisoning by polonium-210, a very rare and hard-to-produce radioactive isotope. Both a 2016 public inquiry by the UK and a 2021 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights deemed Russia was responsible for his death - most likely poisoning his cup of tea - and that the operation had probably been approved by Putin personally. Investigators found traces of polonium in hotels, cars and planes used by the two alleged killers. Russia has never admitted any involvement in Litvinenko's death. UK authorities had to deal with a second infamous poisoning of a prominent Putin regime enemy when Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia's military intelligence who became a double agent for Britain's MI6 in the 1990s, was targeted for revenge in the English town of Salisbury where he was living. In 2018, Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench. Both had been poisoned with Novichok, an advanced and 'very rare' nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union, and traces of it were found smeared on the family's front door. Former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko died in London in one of the most notorious Kremlin poisoning cases Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal survived the poisoning In 2018, Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench. Both had been poisoned with Novichok Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who searched the family home, was hospitalized in critical condition after opening that door with an ungloved hand. The police officer and the two intended victims survived but, several months later, a local woman died after finding a discarded perfume bottle that had been laced with the same batch of the nerve agent. Officials said the bottle, left in a bin, contained enough of the nerve agent to kill thousands of people. Novichok blocks signals from nerves to muscles, collapsing many bodily functions. A larger dose could cause convulsions and breathing trouble, then 'continuous convulsions and vomiting, and a fatal outcome,' scientist Vil Mirzayanov, who helped develop it, told the Daily Mail in 2020. 'We were told we were working in the so-called 'interests of the defence of the country.' It was created tasteless, colorless and odorless to defeat not only NATO chemical protection gear but also the alliance's chemical weapon detection equipment. In what might have been a test run, it was thought to have been used in 1995 when Russian banker Ivan Kivelidi and his secretary Zara Ismailova died after the poison was applied to his Moscow office phone, allegedly by the Russian security services. The UK was never able to bring to justice the two Russian agents it suspected of carrying out the callous attack on the Skripals as they had managed to flee back home. In retaliation, Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats and other countries followed suit in a show of solidarity, bringing the total of expulsions to 153. Once again, Russia denied being involved. The two suspects later claimed in a risible TV interview that they'd visited Salisbury to see its famous cathedral spire. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, one of Putin's most courageous opponents, died in a brutal Siberian prison in 2024 - having first survived another Novichok poisoning four years earlier. He became suddenly and violently ill during an internal Russian flight but - after being extracted from a Russian hospital where he was placed in a coma by doctors who insisted they'd found no trace of poison - he was moved to Berlin. German doctors were able to save his life and confirm he had been poisoned as traces of Novichok were found in his blood and urine. Navalny initially believed the Novichok had been put in his tea because he hadn't consumed anything else in the hours before he fell ill. However, it was later revealed that his underpants had been spiked with the nerve agent. A member of the FSB spy agency team that allegedly tried to murder him was tricked by an investigative website into admitting his colleagues had applied Novichok to the 'inner seams' of Navalny's boxer shorts. These may be the most famous but there have been many other cases in which Russia has been accused of poisoning Putin opponents. Political activist and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza survived two poisonings, in 2015 and 2017. On each occasion, the Russian - a pallbearer at the 2018 funeral of Republican leader John McCain - was left in a coma after suffering multiple organ failure. In 2015, he was taken ill after eating lunch in a Moscow restaurant and treated at a local hospital where he was diagnosed with kidney failure. After he experienced the same symptoms two years later, doctors at the same hospital that had saved his life in 2015 treated him again. The Russian authorities denied requests to open a criminal investigation and tests have failed to conclusively prove he was poisoned. However, in 2021, media investigators said they had confirmed that Kara Murza had been followed by the same FSB unit that shadowed Navalny before he fell ill on both occasions. Yuri Shchekochikhin, another investigative journalist and also a politician in Russia's State Duma, died suddenly in 2003 from a mystery illness just days before he was due to fly to the US to meet FBI investigators. His colleagues and family believe he was poisoned to prevent him uncovering the truth about a high-level corruption scandal involving Russian intelligence and prosecutors. Russian authorities have repeatedly denied calls for a murder investigation, citing a lack of evidence. He was killed by an 'unknown allergen' that - as with so many other poisoning cases - caused multiple organ failure. After reporting fever, body aches, and a burning sensation all over his skin, a Moscow doctor diagnosed him with an acute respiratory viral infection. Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist, died suddenly in 2003 from a mystery illness just days before he was due to fly to the US to meet FBI investigators Alexei Navalny, one of Putin's most courageous opponents, died in a brutal Siberian prison in 2024 - having first survived another Novichok poisoning four years earlier Was Lindsey Graham the latest in a long and shameful line of Putin opponents who've been eradicated by Kremlin agents? His health rapidly deteriorated and he was hospitalized. In the following 12 days, his organs - lungs, liver and kidney - failed one by one and his skin literally peeled off his body. He lost all his hair and, finally, his brain stopped functioning. Russian doctors attributed his death to a severe allergic reaction to medications or infections but never identified exactly which allergen caused it. Meanwhile, his clinical test results were classified as a 'medical secret' and so cannot be divulged to his family and colleagues. Was Lindsey Graham the latest in a long and shameful line of Putin opponents who've been eradicated by Kremlin agents, honing their poisoning skills since the death of Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian dissident writer famously assassinated on a London street in 1978 with a jab from a poisoned umbrella? DC's Medical Examiner has not yet formalized Graham's manner of death as that finding remains 'pending,' while awaiting the results of toxicologic and microscopic testing. 'When a person who is an enemy of Putin's dies suddenly and unexpectedly, one should of course look at all the different possibilities,' Sir William Browder told the Daily Mail. 'And Lindsey Graham was a big enemy of Putin, and he was specifically a very relevant enemy to Putin in the last few days.' Browder stressed that he wasn't saying the senator didn't die from natural causes but added: 'If there's any small possibility that it was something else, that needs to be addressed immediately to rule that out.' He said there had been other cases of Kremlin opponents who'd died in very suspicious circumstances, including in the UK, but whose deaths were never properly investigated because the authorities never did the most basic checks for signs of foul play. If the US authorities did the same now, he said, it would be a 'horrible injustice' to the late senator.