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Murders of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova | |
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Location | Moscow, Russia |
Coordinates | 55°44′38″N37°35′59″E / 55.7438°N 37.5998°E |
Date | 19 January 2009 |
Attack type | Assassination |
Weapon | Browning 1910 pistol |
Deaths | 2 |
Victims |
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Perpetrators | Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists |
Part of a series on |
Neo-Nazism in Russia |
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On 19 January 2009, two Russian journalists, Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov, were shot and killed by members of the neo-Nazi organization Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists. Baburova became the fourth Novaya Gazeta journalist to be killed since 2000.
Stanislav Markelov was shot to death on 19 January 2009 while leaving a news conference in Moscow less than 800 metres (1⁄2 mi) from the Kremlin; he was 34. Anastasia Baburova, a journalist for Novaya Gazeta who tried to come to Markelov's assistance, was also shot and killed in the attack. [1] [2] The weapon used in the shooting was a Browning 1910 pistol. [3]
At first it was reported that Baburova had been wounded in an attempt to detain Markelov's killer, but later Russian law enforcement authorities declared that Baburova was shot in the back of the head. Baburova died a few hours after the attack at a Moscow hospital. [4]
Close to 300 young people protested in Moscow with slogans such as "United Russia is a fascist country" and "Markelov will live forever". [5] More than 2,000 people took to the streets of Grozny. [6]
Then President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko sent her parents a condolence telegram on 23 January 2009. [7] Russian President Dmitry Medvedev gave his condolences six days later. [8] [9] [10]
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International requested an impartial investigation. [11] A hate crimes expert, Galina Kozhevnikova, said in February 2009 that she received an e-mailed threat warning her to "get ready" to join Markelov. [12]
The BBC reported that Markelov had planned to appeal the early release of Yuri Budanov. Budanov, sentenced to ten years in prison, was released early because he had "repented". [13] When reached for a comment, Budanov denounced the killings as a provocation aimed at fueling animosity between Russians and Chechens and offered condolences to the families of the deceased. [14]
Investigations by the radio station Echo of Moscow indicate that most people distrusted the authorities and thought they could not adequately investigate the murder and that the crimes would not be solved. [15]
According to Russian military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, the details of the murder indicate the involvement of Russian state security services. [16] He stated:
In the opinion of the Novaya Gazeta staff, of which I am a member, the Russian security services or rogue elements within these services are the prime suspects in the murders of Baburova and Markelov. The boldness of the attack by a single gunman in broad daylight in the center of Moscow required professional preliminary planning and surveillance that would necessitate the security services, which closely control that particular neighborhood, turning a blind eye. The use of a gun with a silencer does not fit with the usual pattern of murders by nationalist neo-Nazi youth groups in Russia, which use homemade explosives, knives, and group assaults to beat up and stab opponents to death.
The offices of Russia's rulers President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have not issued any statements expressing indignation or offering any condolences after the two murders. This follows the usual behavioral pattern of the authoritarian Putin regime when its critics are murdered in cold blood.
On 26 January 2009, Baburova was buried in the central city cemetery of her home town of Sevastopol. [17]
In November 2009, Russian authorities declared the end of the criminal investigation. The murder suspects were 29-year-old Nikita Tikhonov and his girlfriend, 24-year-old Yevgenia Khasis, a radical nationalist couple involved with a group called Russky Obraz or Russian Image (Russian : Русский образ) and associated with the identitarian organization BORN (Russian : Боевая организация русских националистов). [18] [19]
Initially, "Russkiy Obraz" was a magazine, set up by Tikhonov and his friend Ilya Goryachev in 2002 as a clone of the radical fascist Serbian "Image" (Russian : Сербское "Образ") formed by Mladen Obradovic (Russian : Младен Обрадович), Deacon Boban Milovanovic (Russian : диакон Бобан Милованович) and Alexander Mishich (Russian : Александр Мишич). [20] [a] Both were students of history at Moscow State University. [23] According to Tikhonov, the identitarian organization BORN was founded by him and Goryachev in 2007. [24] [25]
According to both Khasis and Sergey Smirnov, Russky Obraz was the political roof for BORN similar to Sein Fein's relationship to the Irish Republican Army. [26] [27] According to Khasis, Leonid Simunin was the BORN connection to the Kremlin and the presidential administration through Vladislav Surkov with a siloviki as the retired FSB officer Aleksey Korshunov (Russian : Алексей Коршунов) another strong supporter of BORN. [27] [28]
According to investigators, Tikhonov was the one who committed the murder, while Khasis reported to him, by cell phone, the movements of Markelov and Baburova right before the assault. The motive of the murder was revenge for Markelov's prior work as a lawyer in the interests of Trotskyite activists. [29]
The murder suspects were arrested, and were reported to have confessed. In May 2011, Tikhonov was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Khasis was sentenced to 18 years in prison. [29]
In 2015, Goryachev was sentenced for the murder of Markelov. [25]
Novaya Gazeta is an independent Russian newspaper. It is known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs, the horrors of the Chechen wars, corruption among the ruling elite, and increasing authoritarianism in Russia. It was formerly published in Moscow until shortly after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine began, in regions within Russia, and in some foreign countries. The print edition is published on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; English-language articles on the website are published on a weekly basis in the form of the Russia, Explained newsletter. As of 2023, the newspaper had a daily print circulation of 108,000, and online visits of 613,000.
Yuri Dmitrievich Budanov was a Russian military officer convicted for the kidnapping and murder of Elza Kungayeva in Chechnya.
The Autonomous Action is a revolutionary anarchist federation in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine that was founded in January 2002.
Leonid Igorevich Markelov is a Russian politician and lawyer, who is the former head of the Mari El republic in Russia. He took office on January 14, 2001, and resigned from office on April 6, 2017. Markelov was later arrested under suspicion of accepting bribes.
Racism in Russia mainly appears in the form of negative attitudes towards non-ethnic Russian citizens, immigrants or tourists and negative actions against them by some Russians. Traditionally, Russian racism includes antisemitism and Tatarophobia, as well as hostility towards the various peoples of the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Asia and Africa.
Elza Kungayeva was an 18-year-old Chechen woman abducted, beaten, murdered, and allegedly raped by Russian Army Colonel Yuri Budanov during the Second Chechen War.
Maxim Sergeyevich Martsinkevich, better known as Tesak, was a Russian neo-Nazi activist, media personality, vlogger, and the leader and co-founder of the Restruct movement which manifested in post-Soviet countries.
Stanislav Yuryevich Markelov was a Russian human rights lawyer. He participated in a number of publicized cases, including those of left-wing political activists and antifascists persecuted since the 1990s, as well as journalists and victims of police violence.
Anastasia Baburova was a journalist for Novaya Gazeta and a student of journalism at Moscow State University. She was born in Sevastopol, Ukrainian SSR. A member of Autonomous Action, she investigated the activities of neo-Nazi groups. She was shot and killed together with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov.
The Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations is a press advocacy group in Russia. Founded in 2000 as part of the Russian Union of Journalists, the center is the primary media watchdog in the country and produces a variety of publications, including the weekly bulletin of media news and commentary Dangerous Profession.
Natalya Khusainovna Estemirova was a Russian human rights activist and board member of the Russian human rights organization Memorial. Estemirova was abducted by unknown persons on 15 July 2009 around 8:30 a.m. from her home in Grozny, Chechnya, as she was working on "extremely sensitive" cases of human rights abuses in Chechnya. Two witnesses reported they saw Estemirova being pushed into a car shouting that she was being abducted. Her remains were found with bullet wounds in the head and chest area at 4:30 p.m. in woodland 100 metres (330 ft) away from the federal road "Kavkaz" near the village of Gazi-Yurt, Ingushetia.
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Igor Domnikov was a Russian journalist and editor for special topics involving business corruption for Novaya Gazeta in Moscow, Russia, who was murdered in 2000. Although some individuals were convicted of the attack in 2007, the suspected mastermind, Sergey Dorovsky, an ex-government official from Lipetsk Region, was never convicted as the statute of limitations on the case had expired.
Neo-Nazism in Russia is a far-right political and militant movement in Russia. Emerging during the late Soviet era and early 1990s from white power skinheads and football hooligans, neo-Nazism in Russia has become known for a series of violent attacks and murders targeting Central Asian and Caucasian migrants. Videos of these attacks have been uploaded onto the internet by members of neo-Nazi or skinhead gangs, leading to international outcry and an eventual crackdown in the late 2000s and early 2010s.
The All-Russian Public Patriotic Movement «Russian National Unity» was a Russian unregistered nationalist paramilitary organization that existed in 2000–2013 as a result of the split of the previously united organization Russian National Unity (1990). It was managed by a council of regional commanders. The organization was a member of the World Union of National Socialists.
Dmitry Anatolyevich Steshin is a Russian journalist and editor who works for the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper and for his own Telegram channel.
The Battle Organization of Russian Nationalists or the Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists, often abbreviated as BORN, was a Russian neo-Nazi group based out of Moscow. Members were accused of a series of murders and attempted murders, leading to the deaths of at least ten people.
In contemporary Russia, the far-right scene spans a wide spectrum of political groups, authors, activists, political movements and intellectual circles. The mainstream radical right that is allowed or supported by the government to participate in official mass media and public life includes parties such as the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Rodina as well as far-right political thinkers such as Aleksandr Dugin and Lev Gumilev. Other movements of Russia's far right include actors like the Movement Against Illegal Immigration and contemporary successors of the Pamyat organization.
Managed nationalism or controlled nationalism is a term used by some academics to refer to an informal policy of pragmatic collaboration with Russian nationalist and neo-Nazis pursued by the government of Russia under Vladimir Putin. Beginning after Putin's election as President of Russia in 2000 and escalating after the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, managed nationalism led to the promotion of the Russian Image organisation throughout the late 2000s until the 2009 murders of human rights activists Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, at which point Russian Image was dissolved.