How did Rasputin die?
Grigori Rasputin
assassination
Some writers – including Oleg Shishkin, Andrew Cook,[79] Richard Cullen, and Michael Smith[80][81] – have suggested that agents of the British Secret Intelligence Service (BSIS) were involved in Rasputin's assassination.[82] According to this theory, British agents were concerned that Rasputin was urging the tsar to make a separate peace with Germany and withdraw from the war, and that this would allow Germany to transfer a large number of troops to the Western Front.[82] The theory suggests, in other words, that British agents played an active role in Rasputin's assassination in order to keep Russia in the war and force Germany to keep defending the Eastern Front. While there are several variants of this theory, in general they suggest that British intelligence agents under the command of Samuel Hoare, and in particular Oswald Rayner – who had attended Oxford University with Yusopov – were directly involved in planning and carrying out the assassination, [83][84] or that Rayner had personally shot Rasputin.[85] However, historians do not seriously consider this theory. According to historian Douglas Smith, "there is no convincing evidence that places any British agents at the murder scene."[86] Historian Keith Jeffrey has stated that if British Intelligence agents had been involved in the assassination of Rasputin, "I would have expected to find some trace of that" in the MI6 archives, but that no such evidence exists.[81]