Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia

he had married into the imperial family taking as his wife a niece of the tsar which placed him at the very heart of the aristocracy he was by his own later account increasingly horrified by what rasputin was doing to the throne and the country and he came to believe that he personally had a duty to save russia by destroying the peasant yusupov did not act alone Around him gathered a small circle of fellow conspirators, men of high standing who shared his conviction.

There was a Grand Duke, Dmitri Pavlovich, a cousin of the Tsar himself, a young man close to the imperial family and well placed to lend the plot the cover of royal blood.

there was a fiery, ultra-conservative member of the Parliament named Vladimir Purishkevich, a passionate monarchist who had denounced Rasputin in public and now resolved to act in private.

There were others on the edges, a doctor, an army officer, men willing to help with the practical business of the killing.