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I don't think that there is reason to believe that he was killed at this point.

Putin has definitely had people killed, but that doesn't mean that everyone who dies in Russia is killed by the government.

You're talking about a 77-year-old -- people do die more easily at that age -- who may have had no association with the failure of the project.

Previously, there were some senior Russian R&D hypersonics people arrested for leaking secret information around the time that the Kinzhal was intercepted. Some people suggested that the interception and the arrests were related. Maybe those were related to the Kinzhal interception, though I don't think that that has been demonstrated either. But even were that the case, they were not killed.

I have a very hard time seeing the reason to have some random rocket scientist poisoned.

Russia has poisoned people who it would be politically unacceptable to just arrest. I do not believe that some random rocket scientist would qualify.

Finally, the articles insinuating that it was a killing are from tabloidy websites like The Sun or Newsmax. I would not put a whole lot of weight on their willingness to refrain from publishing an article making exciting insinuations merely because it probably isn't true.