Once Upon a Time in Londongrad investigates Russia-linked deaths on British soil

What links a fall from a fourth floor window, a helicopter crash, a hanging, radioactive poisoning and suffocation in a gym bag? Nothing . . . officially.

A timely six-part Sky original documentary series, Once Upon a Time in Londongrad, centres on a spate of unusual deaths that occurred on British soil between 2003 and 2016 involving 14 individuals — oligarchs, financiers, lawyers, spies, whistleblowers and even a scientist — all of whom (either directly or tangentially) could be seen to have posed some kind of threat to the Russian state.

While UK police authorities claimed there was insufficient evidence to confirm Russian foul play in almost all the cases, a team of journalists at BuzzFeed News — whose diligent work and insights drives the documentary — have developed a compelling evidence-based theory that the deceased were victims of assassinations ordered by Russia. The Kremlin has always denied any such accusations.

We start with the death which served as the fountainhead for BuzzFeed’s exhaustive, two-year-long investigation. In 2014 Scot Young, a property mogul, investor and “fixer” for some notorious figures, fell to his death from a window in his Marylebone flat. A coroner ruled that suicide couldn’t be confirmed, while the Met Police dismissed murder as a possibility.

So far, so conventional true-crime thriller. But the scope of the documentary changes once it shifts its attention to one of Young’s business associates, the oligarch Boris Berezovsky — brilliantly described here by one of his own friends as “absolutely honest and dishonest . . . kind and evil”. His exact connection to Young becomes apparent with time, but the story of his transition from the architect of post-Soviet crony capitalism under Yeltsin to the scourge of the Kremlin is fascinating in itself.

In exile in London, Berezovsky invested millions into financing organisations and actions against Putin’s government, including, allegedly, the removal of a pro-Russian presidential candidate in Ukraine. He also helped the FSB officer-turned-dissident Alexander Litvinenko flee to the UK. The latter was poisoned in 2006, and a number of other close associates also died suddenly. Berezovsky himself was found dead in his bathroom in 2013.

Further deaths — each more macabre than the last — follow, but the documentary carefully avoids veering into sensationalism. It may be unable to provide any concrete answers but it asks urgent questions about the kind of influence that Russia has over London: from the City to Scotland Yard to Downing Street and beyond. A montage towards the end of a host of western leaders chummily talking to Putin gives way to shots of the war in Ukraine. The repercussions of not asking questions are all too chillingly clear.

★★★★☆

On Sky Documentaries and Now from May 31 at 9pm