“Somewhere deep in his mind, comrade Putin compares himself to Stalin

Human rights activist Oleg Orlov was arrested after he called Russia a totalitarian and fascist country. He fears that Russia is heading towards the return of the death penalty and urges European officials to support Ukraine in the war.

LONG  READ

Georgii Chentemirov
13 June 2025 - 
THE BARENTS OBSERVER

The Barents Observer met with renown human rights activist Oleg Orlov during his visit to Kirkenes, northern Norway, in May 2025. This is a translation of our original Russian-language interview.

— You ended up in a colony for an article in which you called Russia a totalitarian and fascist state. Why exactly? There is still a certain discussion, for example, about what kind of regime exists in Russia — totalitarian or authoritarian.

— First. At the moment, it is already obvious that the state interferes in all aspects of a person's life. Economy, politics, social life — of course; but now religion and art are also under the strictest control. Private life is no longer private, the state is already intruding into the citizen's bedroom — or rather, even the subject's.

When nothing is left without state control, we can already talk about totalitarianism.

Let's look further. In the Soviet period, the pioneers, the Komsomol, the school as a whole were used as mechanisms of propaganda. Now we see exactly the same thing; this is also an element of totalitarianism.

Next: what kind of totalitarianism is this? Certainly not communist. So what is it? Well, I took the formal definition of the Russian Academy of Sciences and started comparing it with what is happening.

Firstly: it is a political practice and theory that proclaims exclusivity over other ethnicities, states, nations. And they have proclaimed a separate nation, a civilisation that has priority over others. Next: suppression, discrimination against other ethnicities or nations. Well, listen, the denial of the very existence of the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian culture — what is that? It's the same thing. Next, the cult of the leader; well, it's pointless to talk about it.

Next — suppression of political opposition and dissent (!) through state terror; there's no need to discuss it much, let's see who and for what they imprison. And finally — the justification of war as a means of resolving interstate contradictions.

And in my article, I simply suggested: let's discuss, there are other points of view, but from my point of view, this can be called fascism. Well, that's why I was imprisoned.


Oleg Orlov came to Kirkenes to speak at the Kirkenes Conference. Photo: Georgii Chentemirov

Oleg Orlov


Oleg Orlov began his public activities back in 1979. He distributed leaflets about the war in Afghanistan and the situation in Poland. Since 1988, he became a member of the initiative group "Memorial". Orlov worked during the Chechen war and participated in negotiations for prisoner exchanges. In 1995, he was part of a group that negotiated with terrorist Shamil Basayev, who had taken 1,200 residents of the town of Budyonnovsk in the Stavropol region hostage. Orlov, along with several human rights activists, deputies, officials, and journalists, surrendered as hostages to secure the release of civilians. In March 2023, a case was initiated against Oleg Orlov for repeated "discrediting" of the Armed Forces; he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. In August 2024, Orlov was included in a prisoner exchange group: Russian political prisoners were exchanged for spies and murderers.


— What is the secret of fearlessness?

— I don't know.

— No, you do know. You voluntarily went as a hostage to Shamil Basayev in 1995. While in Russia, you did things for which you could be imprisoned, and you were eventually imprisoned. A huge number of people would not be ready even for a tenth of what you did. Is there some kind of recipe?

— I have no recipe, and the word “fearless” doesn't fit either.

I was very scared in two instances in my life. The first was on the eve of prison: you are constantly gnawed by a worm — damn, what will happen there?.. And the second was when I was printing leaflets back in Soviet times. And I understand why I was so scared: I was alone. And from this, I think, comes some conclusion.

Firstly, there must be some sphere of tasks. You understand that you are doing some important work, necessary work. But that's not enough; secondly, you must not be alone. Even placing yourself in a line of people who were before, who are now, and who will be in the future… It's not a recipe, but it helps.

— Where were you more scared: as a hostage of Basayev or in a Russian prison?

— People don't believe me, but I wasn't scared as a hostage. On the contrary, I was inspired. We achieved what we wanted — to free the hostages and save them. And it gave a colossal sense of work done.

In prison, the hardest part was the first day. You find yourself in an absolutely incomprehensible, unfamiliar, unclear situation. I read a lot, talked to people, but still. I was riding in a prison van, alone, into complete unknown… And after entering the cell, getting to know my cellmates, prison life began. And my prison experience was much easier than many others.

— There are currently about a thousand political prisoners from Russia on Memorial's lists. By how much, in your opinion, is this figure underestimated?

— Memorial's lists are a special thing, every letter is verified, we know everything about the criminal case. But this is the lower limit. I have been in five prisons and in each I tried to find out how many political prisoners there were. [Everywhere I encountered] familiar names, but then I counted — and found out exactly as many people who are obviously imprisoned for political reasons, but nothing is known about them. Anti-war statements; someone went out on a picket; a person who was obviously framed for espionage; Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious people, no one knows anything about them at all.

And how many conscientious objectors are imprisoned? We don't know if all of them are for political reasons or not. And how many civilians have been taken from the so-called "new territories" of Russia?

Well, if you estimate, it's thousands of people.

— Are repressions an internal matter of Russia? Or not so internal?

— Any political repression is not an internal matter of a country. A country that suppresses the freedoms of its citizens and engages in political repression is very likely to pose a threat to the outside world.

The entire post-war world is built on the premise that human rights are not a domestic affair. The Soviet Union denied this, but since 1991, it seemed that everyone accepted this viewpoint.

Human rights Expert Council


In 2004, Oleg Orlov joined the Expert Council under the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation. He was also a member of the Human Rights Council but left it after Vladimir Putin's statement that the murder of Anna Politkovskaya caused more harm to Russia than her publications.


— What has the Human Rights Council and the institution of the Human Rights Commissioner turned into? The idea is a good one.

— Figuratively speaking, it has turned into a bow on a rotten and spoiled cake. The idea you are talking about, a real bridge between the authorities and society, has long been lost.

I slammed the door and left after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the disgraceful words the president said about it. But many of my colleagues stayed, they were striving to save specific people. You can't achieve any systemic changes there, but you can help those sitting in one prison or another, pull someone out from under a fabricated charge.

Now even that is no longer possible.

— Why? I understand the logic of Putin's regime: they need to retain power, they have built a system for this task, and of course, they will not change it. But do they really need this specific prisoner to be tortured, or for a hundred-year-old war veteran to live in a barrack without a toilet? Are they deliberately making life difficult for people?

— It seems to me that Putin personally has sadistic tendencies. It's obvious with Aleksei Navalny: he really enjoyed [torturing Navalny], his instructions were followed. But I don't think they are all sadists. I think they have a different, also inhumane, logic: when you chop wood, chips fly. For them, people are chips.

Listen, [in the Kremlin they reason like this:] we have a colossal task — a huge empire, a multipolar world. And an individual can be sacrificed without problems. Well, what can you do? In order for us to fulfil our functions, we have to treat some people very harshly. And then the order goes down the chain, which, in the absence of any control from society, unties the hands of sadists; look at how they are now treating Ukrainian prisoners, it's pure sadism.

Oleg Orlov came to Kirkenes with his wife, human rights activist Tatyana Kasatkina. A memorial to Aleksei Navalny appeared in Kirkenes immediately after his death in the colony. The memorial is supported by local anti-war activists. Photo: Georgii Chentemirov

— Two pieces of news almost on the same day: in Komi, the only fund for preserving the memory of political repressions closed, and in the Moscow metro, they restored a bas-relief with Stalin…

— In Russia, there is a totalitarian regime, which significantly relies on people with a Stalinist mindset, on security forces where Stalinist methods are also popular. The revival of Stalinism is, to a large extent, also coming from below, from this group of people. And of course, somewhere deep in his mind, comrade Putin compares himself to Stalin.

The only initiative, it seems to me, that they do not suppress is denunciations, repressions, and new demands for repressions.

— Do they not want to create such public opinion that would allow them to bring back execution articles?

— I think that among people socially close to Putin, this is one of the main ideas. And if they push a little, I think the Putin regime will meet them halfway.

War crimes


After being released from a Russian prison, Oleg Orlov continued his human rights activities. Together with colleagues from the Human Rights Centre "Memorial" and the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, Orlov documented war crimes committed by the Russian army in Ukraine. In May 2025, Oleg Orlov spoke at the Kirkenes Conference, where he talked about repressions in Russia.


— Why did you decide to come to Kirkenes and speak at the conference?

— When connections between Norway and Russia are halted, it is very important for someone to be here and speak with the voice of at least part of Russia.

I spoke about that Russia which is not Putin's. The main goal of my speeches is, firstly, to say and show that there is another Russia, because time and again I encounter the fact that in Europe all Russians are painted with the same brush. And within Russia, there are many people who do not support Putin, but their voices are often not heard. I hope I am understood ...

My second message is the continuation of support for Ukraine. Stopping such support is very dangerous.

— Russia has unleashed a bloody war, creating tension on the border with European countries, and Russian officials and propagandists are threatening the world with nuclear weapons. And there is a great temptation to resort to rhetoric — let's surround Russia with a moat filled with crocodiles... What do you think about this?

— The threat is real, and building a defence against it is absolutely right. But to imagine that we will put up a wall with barbed wire and let the grass grow — this is, to put it mildly, unproductive and unreasonable in the long term, because the country exists, and it will not disappear. And the longer and stronger this regime lasts, and if there is a 'Putin' after Putin, it is very, very bad for everyone, not only for Russia but for all of Europe.

That is why it is necessary to know that in Russia there are not only Putinists; we must interact with these forces; and we must think about what will happen after Putin.

And the more support for Ukraine, the more hope that after Putin there will be a movement of Russia towards democracy.

Фото: Денис Загорье

— When talking about how Russia could become a normal state, one of the discussed options is the collapse of the country: so that the empire ceases to be an empire. How realistic is this and would it be beneficial?

— There is no definite answer, and any discussions about the dissolution of the state, about parts of present-day Russia gaining independence, must be approached very responsibly and very cautiously. This is exactly the case where you should measure ten times and cut once, because ill-considered steps can lead to truly horrific consequences.

For example, I have worked a lot in the North Caucasus. I have seen how what seemed like a good idea of gaining one's own state can lead to extremists seizing or attempting to seize power. I will use this word, although it has been discredited by Putin; but real extremists are people who do not want to calculate anything, but only want to cut. This is very difficult and dangerous.

Russia has almost always been an empire. And this is a very difficult question for me: can Russia exist not as an empire? I hope so. What can Russia turn into? A real federal state.

— Why has the Russian government turned against the indigenous peoples? This has always been a trump card and a propaganda cliché: Russia is the largest, we have Baikal, and also — 190 ethnic groups... And then they go and label them all as extremists!

— We must see reality behind the words. In reality, what happened to the indigenous peoples? Poverty, widespread drunkenness, dominance of industrialists. Now, when the regime has become totalitarian, the initiatives of all those who genuinely defend the indigenous peoples, who oppose the violence of the state and the monopolies behind it, are being suppressed.

The Kremlin is not so much against indigenous peoples as it is against any initiative, independence, and protection of human rights.

— We are sitting here in Kirkenes, talking; you spoke at the conference, and I will write an article. Will this have any impact?

— My teacher, Sergei Adamovich Kovalev, a Soviet dissident, a former Soviet political prisoner, the first Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia, had a motto, not invented by him, but practiced by him: "Do what you must, and let it be what it will be." So I just do what I must, and that's all.

Resistance Will Endure in the Wake of Alexei Navalny’s Death

 by Stephen J. Lyons
02/28/24
in Opinion

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Photo: AFP


As fate would have it, the day I heard the sad but unsurprising news about Alexei Navalny’s murder death in an Arctic gulag prison, I was reading the riveting account of modern-day Russia by journalist Elena Kostyuchenko.

Her book, I Love Russia: Reporting from A Lost Country, is a must-read for anyone wanting to know what life is like in an autocratic nation run by one of the most despicable men on Earth, the corrupt despot Vladimir Putin, apparently a mentor for former President Donald Trump as well as his favorite hand puppet, Tucker Carlson.

Carlson’s recent softball interview with Putin further enshrined the fired FOX News host as an enemy of democratic ideals.

He also placed his foot firmly in his mouth when he said, regarding not challenging Putin on increased repression in Russia, “I have spent my life talking to people who run countries, in various countries, and have concluded the following: That every leader kills people, including my leader. Every leader kills people, some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people, sorry….”

Navalny’s assassination death was announced four days later.

Repressive Turn

Don’t let the title of Kostyuchenko’s book fool you. It is an ironic statement, but probably also true. The former reporter for the now-shuttered newspaper Novaya Gazeta is a native Russian who loves her country but is also critical of the Stalin-like repressive turn her nation has taken under Putin and his cronies.

Too many of her colleagues at the newspaper have been murdered for their fearless reporting, including famed journalist Anna Politkovskaya, gunned down in the elevator of her apartment building, the price apparently for speaking truth to power in Russia.

In her book, Kostyuchenko reports from Russia’s cruel and poorly-run mental hospitals and from the country’s environmental disasters, where whistleblowers are cowed into silence and health concerns are covered up by Putin’s puppets.

And, like Navalny himself, Kostyuchenko was also a victim of poisoning, a frequent staple in Putin’s arsenal of vengeance that he deploys anywhere in the world without consequences because, as Carlson said, “Leadership requires killing people.”
Lies and Cover-Ups

Life in Russia is dismal under Putin. State-controlled media fills citizens with lies and cover-ups. Protesters of Putin’s unjust war are beaten and jailed, including the mothers of the more than 120,000 Russian soldiers killed and the 180,000 wounded. (Ukraine estimates 70,000 of its soldiers have been killed and as many as 120,000 wounded.)

In the case of Novaya Gazette, Putin shut the newspaper down in 2022, calling it “undesirable.” Its crime? Too much honest reportage in the wake of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine the same year. The publication has resurfaced as Novaya Gazeta Europe and now publishes from Riga, Latvia. On its website is the following mission statement: “Censorship may have decimated independent journalism in Russia, but it won’t stop us reporting freely about the country and the war in Ukraine.”

Recent headlines: Scorched earth: Photos from Avdiivka, the ruined Ukrainian city now under Russia’s control; A mysterious commotion: A fellow inmate recounts events in the IK-3 penal colony on the eve of Alexey Navalny’s death; and At least 157 people detained in 25 cities as Russians mourn the loss of Alexey Navalny.

That number keeps growing. Since Navalny’s homicide passing at the Polar Wolf IK-3 penal colony, some 400 Russians have been arrested for holding peaceful protests around the country. Will they get a fair trial? Doubtful. Will they be found guilty? No doubt.

A Ukrainian soldier near the frontline of Russia-backed separatists. 

Photo: Anatoli Stepanov/AFP via Getty
Our Fight

As Kostyuchenko writes in I Love Russia, “In 2021, Russian courts oversaw the trials of 783,000 people. Of these, exactly 2,190 were found innocent… The probability of someone charged with a crime being exonerated was 0.28 percent.”

As I write this, Navalny’s body has not been released to his widow Yulia Navalnaya. The reason seems obvious. His corpse would reveal the cause of his very unnatural death. Navalnaya believes her husband was killed with the nerve agent Novichok and the Kremlin is holding his body until the poison dissipates. Novichok was employed against former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in England in 2018. They survived.

Putin will be “elected” next month for a fifth term. With Navalny and others out of the way, the “election” is just another orchestrated Russian Potemkin farce that fools no one.

The death of Navalny will ignite a thousand Navalnys because all autocrats eventually meet their end because the power of ideas cannot be crushed with force. The walls of oppression are porous. Because of the courage of journalists like Elena Kostyuchenko and the doggedness of news organizations like Novaya Gazeta Europe, Putin’s day will also come sooner rather than later.

As Yulia Navalnaya said in her recent video message to the world: “I will continue Alexei Navalny’s work … I want to live in a free Russia, I want to build a free Russia. I call on you to stand with me. To share not only grief and endless pain … I ask you to share with me the rage. The fury, anger, hatred for those who dare to kill our future.”

All of us around the world share that rage. Navalny’s fight is our fight, and it is not yet finished.Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of The Globe Post.



Stephen J. Lyons
Author of six books of reportage and essays, most recently “Searching for Home: Misadventures with Misanthropes” (Finishing Line Press)

ASSASSINATED

Death of Alexei Navalny decimates the Russian opposition

Agence France-Presse
February 16, 2024

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny February 2, 2021. © AFP

The death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has further diminished a rapidly shrinking Russian opposition, which has seen its members assassinated, sentenced to lengthy prison terms or forced into exile as Russian President Vladimir Putin makes it clear he will not tolerate challenges to his regime.

It was widely feared that Alexei Navalny was risking his life by positioning himself as Putin’s most vocal critic in an increasingly repressive Russia, even challenging him for the presidency in 2018.

Navalny narrowly survived being poisoned with novichok – a group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union – in 2020 and spent months recuperating in Germany. He earned admiration from Russia's disparate opposition for voluntarily returning to Russia the following year.

His death comes just a day before the official launch of campaigning ahead of a new round of presidential elections set for March 15-17.

Putin oversaw changes to the constitution in 2021 that will allow him to run for two more six-year terms, meaning he could stay in power until 2036. Putin is already the longest-serving Kremlin leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who died in 1953.

On December 8 Putin announced his candidature for re-election and is widely expected to win, given the lack of political alternatives and the Kremlin's iron grip on the state apparatus.

Those who have been brave enough to defy Putin ahead of the vote have been stymied by legal challenges.

Former legislator Yekaterina Duntsova was barred in December from challenging Putin when the Central Election Commission said it was refusing to accept her nomination, citing errors in submitted documents that included misspelled names. Duntsova said she would appeal the decision at the Supreme Court and appealed to the Yabloko (Apple) party to nominate her as a candidate after the party's founder and leader, Grigory Yavlinsky, said he would not be challenging Putin for the presidency.

Duntsova has said she wants to see a more “humane” Russia that is "peaceful, friendly and ready to cooperate with everyone on the principle of respect”.

Another anti-war candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, was also disqualified from next month's presidential election. Russia's Supreme Court on Thursday rejected legal challenges to the ruling but Nadezhdin said he would appeal and file a further claim against the electoral commission's refusal to register him as a candidate.

"I don't give up and I won't give up," he said.

An Arctic prison

Navalny was Putin's most vocal critic and the one who garnered the most international recognition, winning the EU's Sakharov Prize for human rights in 2021.

Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin found a way to remove him from the running. Navalny was sentenced to 19 more years in prison in August last year on extremism charges. He was already serving a nine-year term for embezzlement and other charges that he maintained were politically motivated.

Navalny briefly disappeared in December from the IK-6 prison colony in the Vladimir region, some 250 kilometres east of Moscow, where he had spent most of his detention. His disappearance provoked widespread international alarm, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken releasing a statement on X shortly before Christmas to say he was "deeply concerned about the whereabouts of Aleksey Navalny".


After sending hundreds of requests to detention centres across Russia, Navalny’s allies managed to locate him. In a series of sardonic messages published on X shortly thereafter, Navalny said he was “fine” and “relieved” that he had arrived at his new, and much more remote, Arctic prison.

A BBC reporter said Navalny "looked to be fine" when he appeared via video link at a court hearing the day before his death.

A decimated opposition

When not waylaid by legal challenges, Putin's critics also have a habit of dying prematurely. Opposition politician and former deputy PM Boris Nemtsov was shot dead near Red Square in Moscow in 2015. At the time of his death, the 55-year-old Nemtsov was working on a report that he believed proved the Kremlin’s direct involvement in the pro-Russian separatist rebellion that had erupted in eastern Ukraine the year prior.

Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was an investigative reporter at top independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and a fierce critic of the war in Chechnya. Politkovskaya, 48, was shot dead in 2006 at the entrance to her Moscow apartment block. Five men were sentenced and imprisoned over her death in 2014; one of them, a former policeman, was pardoned and released in 2023 after fighting in Ukraine.


Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent turned Putin critic, died after drinking green tea laced with the radioactive isotope polonium-210 at London’s Millennium Hotel in November 2006, six years to the day after he fled Russia for Britain. In a 326-page report on his death, a UK judge said there is a "strong probability" that the killing was "probably approved" by Putin.

The leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, led a march on Moscow last June after becoming an increasingly vocal critic of Putin's handing of the war in Ukraine. After hours of uncertainty the rebellion fizzled and Prigozhin reportedly agreed to go into exile in Belarus.

He died in a private plane crash two months after launching his aborted challenge. Grenade fragments were found in the bodies of victims at the crash site, according to the Kremlin.

Others have found themselves behind bars, serving lengthy prison sentences. Amid the war in Ukraine, a law criminalising “discrediting the Russian armed forces” was adopted on March 4, 2022; in the three days that followed, more than 60 cases were opened against those accused of violating the new law, “the vast majority” of them peaceful anti-war protesters, according to Human Rights Watch.

Russian political activist and former journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, 42, was sentenced last April to 25 years in prison for publicly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He was convicted of treason and spreading "false" information about the Russian military, among other charges.

Kara-Murza, a member of the rapidly shrinking group of opposition figures who remain in Russia, said he was determined to be a voice against both Putin and the invasion of Ukraine.

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel condemned the sentencing. "Mr. Kara-Murza is yet another target of the Russian government's escalating campaign of repression. We renew our call for Mr. Kara-Murza's release, as well as the release of the more than 400 political prisoners in Russia," Patel said at the time.

The death of Navalny further weakens a Russian opposition already decimated by death and imprisonment, with others having gone into exile over fears for their safety.

There are almost “no options for expressing criticism" in Russia, where repression has reached a scale "unequalled since the end of World War II", Russia expert Cécile Vaissié of Rennes-II University told FRANCE 24 shortly after Kara-Murza was sentenced.

But she said a few voices do remain, and their presence in Russia carries "symbolic weight" – even if they are prevented from wielding any real power.

(AFP, AP and Reuters)

'Mourners in Moscow laid flowers at a makeshift memorial for late opposition leader Alexei Navalny'

Issued on: 17/02/2024 - 

Photographs and flowers are left outside the Russian Embassy in London on February 16, 2024, following the news of the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. 

© Daniel Leal, AFP

Video by: Matthew-Mary Caruchet

Despite warnings against public gatherings, mourners in Moscow laid flowers at a makeshift memorial for late opposition leader Alexei Navalny. While the reaction in Russia was muted, protesters in other cities did not pull their punches. In corners of the world with a large, emigrant Russian population, people gathered to protest, accusing Moscow of orchestrating his death less than a month before an election that will give President Putin another six years in power.

Hundreds detained across Russia at rallies in memory of Navalny

Agence France-Presse
February 17, 2024 

Police officers detain a man who laid flowers in tribute to Alexei Navalny at the Memorial to Victims of Political Repression in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 16, 2024. © APAt least 212 people were detained at events in Russia on Friday and Saturday in memory of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin's most formidable domestic opponent, who died on Friday, according to an independent Russian human rights group.

At least 212 people were detained at events in Russia on Friday and Saturday in memory of Alexei Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin's most formidable domestic opponent, who died on Friday, according to an independent Russian human rights group.

It would be the largest wave of arrests at political events in Russia since Sept. 2022, when more than 1,300 were arrested at demonstrations against a "partial mobilisation" of reservists for the military campaign in Ukraine.

Navalny, a 47-year-old former lawyer, fell unconscious and died on Friday after a walk at the "Polar Wolf" Arctic penal colony where he was serving a three-decade sentence, authorities said.

OVD-Info, which reports on freedom of assembly in Russia, said at least 212 people in 21 cities across Russia had been detained at spontaneous rallies and vigils as of 1127 GMT on Saturday.

OVD-Info said that police had detained at least 109 people in St Petersburg and at least 39 in Moscow, the country's two largest cities, where Navalny's mostly educated and urban supporters had been concentrated.

The group also reported individual arrests in smaller cities across Russia, from the border city of Belgorod, where seven were killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on Thursday, to Vorkuta, an Arctic mining outpost once a centre of the Stalin-era gulag labour camps.

Navalny team confirms his death

Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh confirmed his death on Saturday, saying official notice had been given to his mother Lydumila. Navalny died at 2:17pm local time (9:17 GMT) on Friday, according to the notice.

Yarmysh later said that Navalny's mother and lawyer went to see the morgue in Salekhard, the town near the prison complex, to find it closed. The lawyer called the morgue and was told that Navalny's body was not there, his team said on Telegram.

An employee at the morgue told Reuters that Navalny's body never arrived.

"Alexei's body is not in the morgue," Yarmysh said on X, formerly Twitter. She has demanded that his body be handed over to his family.

Police detain mourners at Moscow tribute

Arrests continued Saturday with Russian police detaining people who came to lay flowers at makeshift memorial sites in several cities, according to rights groups and independent media reports.

Video footage published by the independent media outlet Sota showed people in Moscow being taken away by masked police during the silent, peaceful tribute where dozens had gathered.

AFP reporters saw two people being detained and dozens of police surrounding the area, not allowing people to linger near the imposing bronze monument, known as the "Wall of Grief".

Footage filmed by Reuters in Moscow showed law enforcement bundling people to the ground in the snow, close to a spot where mourners had left flowers and messages in support of the dead opposition leader.

"In each police department there may be more detainees than in the published lists," OVD-Info said. "We publish only the names of those people about whom we have reliable knowledge and whose names we can publish."

Reuters could not immediately verify the count.


The hundreds of flowers and candles laid in Moscow on Friday to honour Navalny's memory were mostly taken away overnight in black bags. Russians paying their respects spoke of their despair and apathy after Navalny's death.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)

Navalny's death is a message to the West

February 16, 2024

Ian Bremmer

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here from the Munich Security Conference, just kicking off what is the most important security confab for NATO and the West every year. And the big news literally moments before the initial speeches for this conference, the announcement coming from Russia that Alexei Navalny had been imprisoned for years is now dead, looked fine yesterday, perfect health, when he was at a legal hearing today, suddenly died, supposedly of a stroke.

Putin, the Kremlin responsible, of course, and also a direct message. I think it's very clear to show the West to show the United States, to show NATO they can do what they want. They can act with impunity on their territory. They do not care if they are threatened. There was I remember after Biden met with Putin, this is back in 2021, and he said that it would be devastating. The consequences would be devastating for Russia if Navalny were to die in jail. Well, I mean, we've also said similar things to Putin about Russia invading Ukraine. And a couple of years on the Russian position, despite all of the economic damage they've taken, all of the military damage they've taken is that they will continue to engage in this war. They will continue to engage in human rights abuses. And it doesn't matter how the Americans or Europeans respond. The Russians will wait them out.

And that is the message that is being sent today. It's a very chilling message. I saw Vice President Harris and a number of European leaders all take to the stage, as well as Navalny's now widowed wife. All saying that this cannot be in vain, that there must be consequences. But ultimately, in an environment where rogue states feel like they have more ability to act on the global stage, Russia, Iran, North Korea, the so-called axis of resistance, terrorist actors, you will see more of this behavior. So the question is being put to the Munich Security Conference. Question is being put to NATO. Will you continue to work collectively? Will you take a stand against this sort of behavior? And Putin is watching that answer very, very carefully.

That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.

• Navalny’s death: Five things to know ›
• What happens if Alexei Navalny dies? ›
• Putin critic Alexei Navalny dies in prison ›
• “A film is a weapon on time delay” — an interview with “Navalny” director Daniel Roher ›
• Putin's gulag gamble with Navalny ›

Vladimir Putin’s killer patriotism

NINA L KHRUSHCHEVA 

SOCIAL EUROPE

28th November 2023

Last year’s ‘partial mobilisation’ triggered a backlash against the Kremlin and Putin is fearful of a repeat.

Cold war revisited: same old enemy (US moneyed interests), even older hero (‘traditional’ Russia) (Nina Khrushcheva)

In 2014, the former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the 2006 murder of Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist from the liberal publication Novaya Gazeta. Now, just nine years into his sentence, Khadzhikurbanov has been pardoned, after spending six months fighting Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. As far as the Russian president is concerned, this makes Khadzhikurbanov a patriot.

Khadzhikurbanov is far from the only violent criminal to earn a pardon in Russia by joining Putin’s army in Ukraine. It is a practice inspired by none other than Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane explosion two months after his Wagner Group mercenaries staged an aborted rebellion in June.
Crucial ally

Despite his inglorious end, Prigozhin was long a crucial ally of Putin. His cv included running a troll farm to create Russian propaganda stories and deploying his Wagner fighters in African countries, in part to gain access to resources such as gold and uranium, often in exchange for protecting the lives and interests of local leaders. Wagner soldiers were also needed in the Ukraine war, fighting some of its bloodiest battles, such as the months-long struggle for Bakhmut.

Before hitching his fortunes to Putin, Prigozhin was a convicted criminal who spent nine years in prison for robbery and assault in the 1980s. No wonder he recruited criminals for the Wagner Group—a practice that has now been adopted by the Russian defence ministry. Though the official number of convict-soldiers is unknown, we know that more than 5,000 criminals were pardoned last March, after finishing their contracts to fight for Wagner. According to Prigozhin, some 40,000 prisoners were involved in the battle for Bakhmut.

Though these pardoned fighters remain in the military, some do manage to return home from the front—at least two dozen, according to some unofficial sources. Often, they have committed truly horrific acts. One pardoned fighter killed his girlfriend and put her body through a meat grinder; another stabbed his ex-wife in the stomach ten times. One ‘patriot’ filmed himself beating his friend to death, as if it were a joke.

But after just a few months at the front, their sins are forgiven and they are free to sin again. Some have reportedly carried out new violent crimes, including rape and murder, upon their retu

Even Putin loyalists are not fully on board with the Kremlin’s effort to make heroes out of criminals. Last year, the governor of Sverdlovsk region, Yevgeny Kuyvashev, clashed with Prigozhin after a local club refused to host a Wagner fighter’s funeral. ‘If he were a real soldier, fine, but he was just a former prisoner,’ the club insisted.
Two Russias

Pardoning violent convicts might not be a particularly desirable way to get more soldiers on to the battlefield, but for Putin the alternative would be even worse. Last year’s ‘partial mobilisation’ triggered a significant backlash and Putin is fearful of a repeat. He also knows that there are two Russias—and that if the Kremlin keeps sending convicts, both will get something that they want.

The first Russia, comprising those living in Russia’s two biggest cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg, can pretend there is no war at all. Visit a bookstore such as Respublika in Moscow and you will find American and British bestsellers and works by Russian authors who have fled the regime, such as Boris Akunin and Dmitry Bykov. Head to a cinema on Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg and you can watch the American blockbusters Barbie and Oppenheimer, without seeing any sign that the authorities banned the films for ‘not upholding traditional Russian values’.

People in this Russia are well aware of the tenuousness of their reality. When I asked a young couple watching Oppenheimer what traditional Russian values are, they replied that no one really knows. But they also recognised the limits of their power to change their reality, before acknowledging that the cinema might soon be closed for ‘dissidence’.

Then there is the other Russia, the one you find in small towns and villages scattered across the country’s massive territory. Here, the Ukraine war is a source of patriotic pride and anyone who risks their lives for victory deserves to be honored.

On a recent trip to Siberia’s Omsk region, a couple beamed as they told me about their soldier son: ‘He fought for his country,’ the mother gushed. ‘He has a medal, and with the money he earned, he took us on vacation to Crimea.’ They did not mention that, prior to becoming a ‘hero’, he had been in and out of prison for most of his life.

For them, it probably does not matter. In Russia, the Kremlin has made clear, one can ‘atone with blood’. The money also helps. In the Omsk region, young men—not prisoners—receive 195,000 rubles (€2,000) just for enlisting. If they die, their families receive the equivalent of tens of thousands of euro in compensation. If they return, they can buy houses, cars and more. Either way, the economic boost is substantial.

Russia’s duality is nothing new. The state symbol is a double-headed eagle. Rarely, however, have the two Russias stood in such stark contrast to each other. While Moscow and Saint Petersburg mourn their isolation from the rest of the world, the provinces embrace Putin’s message of animosity toward anything ‘not Russian’.

The longer the war rages, the more deeply this sentiment will take hold outside Russia’s biggest cities. If the outside world is against us, insist the provinces, we will protect our great nation from those who want to diminish it. But no one in the outside world can diminish Russia more gravely than the growing number of Putin’s pardoned patriots.




Nina L Khrushcheva   is professor of international affairs at the New School in New York and co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones (St Martin's Press).

Russian media: Putin pardons convicted killer of famed Russian journalist
Nate Ostiller
Tue, November 14, 2023 


Russian dictator Vladimir Putin pardoned the convicted killer of famed Russian opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya after his military service in Ukraine, Russian state-controlled media RBC reported on Nov. 14.

Former Russian police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was convicted of his role in Politkovskaya's murder in 2014 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He has been imprisoned since then but went to fight in Ukraine as part of the Kremlin's drive to recruit prisoners.

In 2022, the Russian authorities allowed Wagner Group to recruit prisoners in Russian jails. Russia's Defense Ministry has also recruited from Russian jails. Under this procedure, they were pardoned in exchange for military service.

The late Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in June 2023 that as many as 32,000 former prisoners had returned to Russia after fighting in Ukraine.

Khadzhikurbanov's lawyer did not say when he started to fight in Ukraine or when he received the presidential pardon. Khadzhikurbanov is currently fighting in Ukraine on a contract with Russia's Defense Ministry, his lawyer said.

Politkovskaya came to prominence in large part because of her coverage of Russia's brutal wars in the breakaway Russian Republic of Chechnya, specifically related to her coverage of war crimes and human rights abuses. Apart from working for the independent Russian paper Novaya Gazeta, she also wrote several books about Chechnya. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the two wars in the early 90s and 2000s.

She was shot and killed in an elevator in her apartment building in Moscow in 2006. Khadzhikurbanov and four others were found guilty of Politkovskaya's murder, two of whom received life sentences, but it remains unclear exactly who ordered her killing

Politkovskaya was an outspoken critic of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, regularly denouncing his role in human rights abuses in Chechnya. There have been rumors that he, as well as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, were linked to her death, but no concrete proof.

Read also: Team of liberal economists helps Putin keep his power, wage war in Ukraine

Man convicted of murdering Russian journalist Politkovskaya was pardoned and is fighting in Ukraine
Ukrainska Pravda
Tue, November 14, 2023

Sergei Hadzhikurbanov, former operative officer of the Russian regional directorate for countering organised crime, convicted of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian Novaya Gazeta journalist, was pardoned and went on to fight in Ukraine on the side of Russia.
Source: Russian Telegram channel Baza, RBC

Details: In 2014, Hadzhikurbanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The official term of his imprisonment was supposed to last until 2034.

As it was discovered by Baza, Hadzhikurbanov joined the war in Ukraine at the end of 2022.

Allegedly, he began his service as commander of the intelligence department. According to the source, he "repeatedly went behind enemy lines, performing specific tasks as an intelligence officer with his fighters".

After six months of "service" as a convict, Hadzhikurbanov was pardoned and now participates in the war as a civilian who concluded a contract with the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation.

For reference: Anna Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta journalist, was killed on 7 October 2006 in the entrance to an apartment building in Moscow. The person who ordered the murder was not found, but the investigators consider Lom-Ali Gaitukayev to be the organiser of the crime. In 2014, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, in 2017 he died in prison.

In addition to Gaitukayev, his nephews Dzhabrail Makhmudov, Ibrahim Makhmudov and Rustam Makhmudov, Hadzhikurbanov, a former employee of the regional directorate for countering organised crime, and lieutenant colonel Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, a former employee of the Moscow police department, were found guilty of organising and executing the murder of Politkovskaya.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is pardoning prisoners convicted in the Russian Federation, in particular on serious charges, to send them to fight in the war against Ukraine.

Russian convicted in journalist's murder pardoned after serving in Ukraine

CBSNEWS
November 14, 2023

A man who was convicted in Russia for involvement in the 2006 murder of prominent investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya has received a presidential pardon after fighting in Ukraine, according to his lawyer and local media reports. Former police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2014 for helping to organize the assignation of Politkovskaya, a reporter with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper who was gunned down in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building.

Politkovskaya was a vocal critic of Russia's war in Chechnya, and while her thorough investigations of Russian military abuses during that conflict received international recognition, they also angered Russian authorities.

Khadzhikurbanov's lawyer, Alexey Mikhalchik, told Russian news outlets that his client was pardoned after serving a six-month contract on the front lines in Ukraine, and that he had since signed another contract to continue serving in the military.

"He worked in special forces in the 90s, he has experience, which is probably why he was immediately offered a command position," Mikhalchik told the Russian business news outlet RBC.

Khadzhikurbanov and four other men were sentenced in 2014 over Politkovskaya's murder, but it was never determined who ordered her killing.

Russian human rights activists attend a rally in honor of slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in Moscow on October 7, 2010. / Credit: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty

"Neither the victims nor the editors were informed about the killer's pardon. Just like they aren't informing us about how they are looking for the rest of the killers — and above all, the person who ordered it. [That's] Because they are not looking and because [the killers] are being covered for," Novaya Gazeta said in a statement Tuesday.

"For us, this 'pardon' is not evidence of atonement and repentance of the murderer. This is a monstrous fact of injustice and arbitrariness, an outrage against the memory of a person killed for her convictions and professional duty," the newspaper's statement added.

The Russian military has increasingly relied on convicts to supplement its depleted military units amid a protracted Ukrainian counteroffensive. Prison recruitment has supplied the Russian army with tens of thousands of fighters, according to prisoners' rights advocacy groups, enabling the Kremlin to avoid another mass-mobilization of recruits after the initial effort to call up ordinary Russians in late 2022 proved hugely unpopular. Thousands of young Russian men fled the country to avoid conscription.

In recent weeks, Russian media have reported on multiple instances of convicted murderers in high-profile cases being released after serving only a fraction of their sentence after serving on the front lines, including Vladislav Kanyus who served less than a year of his 17-year sentence for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Vera Pekhteleva.

Kanyus reportedly tortured Pekhteleva for hours, inflicting 111 stab wounds and choking her with a cord.

Pekhteleva's mother Oksana told local media that her family was shocked by the news of Kanyus' pardon, saying: "This is a spit in my face, and at those mothers whose [children] were brutally killed in the same way. There are so many of us all over the country, we don't know what to do. This comrade may still be fighting, but some killers already walk free, and these mothers see them. How is it possible to live with this?"

A man convicted in the 2006 killing of a Russian journalist wins a pardon after serving in Ukraine

EMMA BURROWS
Tue, November 14, 2023 

FILE - Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, accused of the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, awaits the judge's verdict in a glass cage, at the Moscow City Court, Russia, Wednesday, May 21, 2014. A lawyer for Khadzhikurbanov said Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, that he received a presidential pardon after doing a stint fighting in Ukraine. 

AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin

A man convicted in the 2006 killing of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya received a presidential pardon after he did a stint fighting in Ukraine, his lawyer said.

Sergei Khadzhikurbanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2014 for his role as an accomplice in the killling of Politkovskaya, 48. She worked for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and wrote stories critical of Kremlin policies during the early years of President Vladimir Putin's term, the war in Chechnya and human rights abuses.

She was shot and killed in the elevator of her Moscow apartment block, triggering outrage at home and in the West, and emphasizing the dangers faced by independent journalists in Russia. Her death on Oct. 7, Putin’s birthday, led to suggestions the shooting — in which the Kremlin denied any role — was done to curry favor with the president.

Four others also were convicted in the killing: gunman Rustam Makhmudov and his uncle, Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, who received life in prison, and two of Makhmudov’s brothers, who received 12 and 14 years.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, private military contractors and the Defense Ministry have offered prisoners their freedom in exchange for fighting in the war.

Khadzhikurbanov, a former police detective, was released last year to fight in Ukraine and then signed a Defense Ministry contract to continue serving after his pardon, his lawyer Alexei Mikhalchik told The Associated Press.

He was offered a command position in the military because he was in the “special forces" in the late 1990s and was in "almost all the hot spots,” Mikhalchik said.

Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, and Politkovskaya's children, Vera and Ilya, condemned Khadzhikurbanov's release.

“For us, this ‘pardon’ is not evidence of atonement and repentance of the killer. This is a monstrous fact of injustice. ... It is an outrage to the memory of a person killed for her beliefs and professional duty,” they said.

Muratov said the “victims in this case — the children of Anna Politkovskaya and the editors” — were not told in advance about the pardon. They also slammed Russian authorities for using the law "according to its own perverted understanding,” by giving long prison sentences to political opponents while setting murderers free.

Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 but this year was declared by Russian authorities to be a foreign agent, continuing the country’s moves to suppress critics and independent reporting.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this month that convicts recruited to fight in Ukraine are worthy of pardons.

“Those sentenced, even on grave charges, shed their blood on the battlefield to atone for their crimes. They redeem themselves by shedding blood in assault brigades, under bullet fire and shelling,” he said.

Mikhalchik said he was “happy” his client was freed because he never believed he was involved in killing Politkovskaya.

Muratov told the AP that while Khadzhikurbanov "was not the direct perpetrator of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya,” no investigation has taken place to establish who was behind it.

“The person who ordered it is free, and the accomplice to the crime has been pardoned. This all that can be said about the protection of freedom of speech in Russia," he said.

Muratov noted it was the second recent example of a prisoner convicted in a killing to win his freedom after serving in Ukraine.

Vera Pekhteleva, 23, was killed in January 2020 by her boyfriend after ending their relationship. The man convicted in her death, Vladislav Kanyus, was pardoned in April, according to lawyer and human rights advocate Alena Popova.

Pekhteleva's family discovered Kanyus was free when her mother saw online photos of him wearing camouflage and holding a weapon, Popova said on her Telegram channel.

“There is no justice. There is no law. There are no human rights. Nothing. Just total violence,” Popova told AP in response to the news about the release of Khadzhikurbanov.

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LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for Anna Politkovskaya 

Vera Politkovskaya: No one in Russia values my mom's legacy

Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist who was killed in 2006, foresaw what would become of Russia under Vladimir Putin. Her daughter explains in a new book how no one listened to the warning signs.

Marina Baranovska

DW
10/26/2023

Vera Politkovskaya's latest book

Image: Marina Baranovska/DW


Vera Politkovskaya, the daughter of murdered Russian journalist, human rights activist and Vladimir Putin critic Anna Politkovskaya, has released a new book. The German version is titled "Meine Mutter hätte es Krieg genannt," which roughly translates to "My mother would have called it war." The book was co-authored with Sara Giudice.

Anna Politkovskaya became a well-known figure in the 1990s when she worked as a reporter for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, especially for her reporting from the northern Caucasus region. Politkovskaya dedicated much of her career to covering the Second Chechen War. She was killed on October 7, 2006, in Moscow.

The title of Vera Politkovskaya's latest book alludes to Russia's war in Ukraine, which in Russia is referred to merely as a "special military operation."

Politkovskaya moved to Italy after Russia invaded Ukraine, where she now works as a freelance journalist. DW spoke with her at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Vera Politkovskaya attended this year's Frankfurt Book FairI

mage: Marina Baranovska/DW

DW: How and when did you decide to write your book?

Vera Politkovskaya: In our family, we thought for years about how much is known about my mother's work, how she stayed in Chechnya and what she wrote about. At the same time, little is known about her personality. My mother's life was not only about work. There was also another side that almost no one knew. We often spoke about how good it would be if one of us described this other side of her. When I was offered to write this book, I immediately said yes.

What was your mother like?

She was difficult because a simple person would hardly be able to perform and endure the kind of work she did. She had a rather complicated personality, which showed itself at work and among the family. As children, my brother and I often experienced our mother's very clear ideas of how our lives should develop. Our education was very close to her heart, and it was vital to her. And, of course, there were disagreements because we were teenagers and wanted to do other things.

What did you think about your mother's work at Novaya Gazeta when you were young? Did you support her?

I was a kid in the early 1990s and then a teenager. I was busy with my own life, so I can't say I paid close attention to her work. My mother began focusing on Chechnya in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Then, she encountered her first problems concerning her security. She knew what she was doing. For us, the main consequences of her work were that she sometimes discussed safety concerns with us and urged us to be careful.

DW: In your book, you write that your mother suspected she could die…

Yes, that began after her colleague Yuri Shchekochikhin died. He was poisoned. After that, my mother strangely began talking about how it must be a beautiful death if she were killed as Yuri Shchekochikhin was, should that be her fate. She said it would be nice if it were a poisoned bouquet of roses. She said she would hold the bouquet, take a deep breath and die a beautiful death for a woman.

But jokes aside, there were discussions about how she wanted to be buried, what to do when she died, where she kept all the documents and money in the house. Of course, we did not discuss this often, but it was a topic.

DW. What was your first thought that came to your mind when you learned that Russia had attacked Ukraine?

It came as a shock. Although the Western media had warned this would happen, of course, I did not want to believe it would. A few days before the war began, there was that famous speech by Putin (in which he declared the recognition of the independence of the "Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics"). When I heard that speech, I realized war would come.

Anna Politkovskaya covered the abhorrent violence and cruelty of war in Chechnya

Image: Stringer/picture-alliance

Nevertheless, the scale of this war was hard to comprehend. The first rational thought that came to me after the war began — and after recovering a little from the shock — was that I must leave the country. If we — and by we, I mean Russia — were teetering on the brink of an abyss all this time, we have plunged into it now.

DW: What has to happen for public opinion in Russia to change?

According to independent sociological studies, no more than 30% of the Russian population supports this war. And I think that's accurate. The people don't want war. Support for Putin is a different problem. Some people in Russia believe that nobody other than Putin can rule such a vast country with so many issues. I won't criticize these people, but of course, I think they are wrong.

It is clear that the system that is in place in Russia will not disappear as long as Putin is there, and everything will continue in this spirit. Most likely, he will remain in power until 2036. But people are wrong to think that once Putin is gone, we will immediately get a wonderful, modern Russia. There will be no rapid change after his departure. New significant problems will arise In 2036 when he's gone.

Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in her Moscow home in October 2006

Image: picture-alliance/dpa/TASS/A. Demianchuk

A power struggle will erupt that will most likely be bloody and ruthless. Then Russia will be unstable for years, and only after many more years, in the best case, will someone reasonable come to power. Do you realize what time frame we are talking about? I don't know if I will live to see it.

DW: Your mother's book "In Putin's Russia" and her articles predicted many things that came to pass after her death, including that the wars in Chechnya are only the beginning and what Putin's rule would lead to. Why were her warnings not taken seriously in Russia or the West?

People who read her works at that time in Russia and the West believed she was greatly exaggerating. But as history has shown, none of it was exaggerated.

What legacy did your mother leave behind?

To call things as they were. To realize that you are not wrong just because you're in the minority. And to act according to your own perspective and your own assessment of the situation. If we are talking about her legacy in journalism, I hope that it will be honored somewhere outside Russia. But this I can say with certainty: No one in Russia values her legacy.

This interview was conducted by Marina Baranovska and was translated from German.

Prigozhin Joins Long List of Those Who Defied Putin and Died

With Prigozhin's death, Putin’s message is clear: opposition will not be tolerated and will probably have fatal consequences.

BY STEFAN WOLFF

AUGUST 24, 2023

Prigozhin’s demise also draws a line under the apparent power struggle within the Russian military. (Image Credit: Russian Government)

Two months after challenging Vladimir Putin’s leadership in an apparent but abortive “mutiny,” Yevgeny Prigozhin — the former owner of the mercenary private military company Wagner Group — has joined a long list of prominent Russians to die in mysterious circumstances.

Prigozhin’s private jet apparently crashed on a routine flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg just after 3 p.m. local time. Confirmation of Prigozhin’s likely demise came in the form of announcements by Russia’s authorities and a Telegram channel linked to the Wagner group. Conveniently, there was also video footage of the plane falling out of the sky and burning on the ground.

With him on the aircraft was Dmitry Utkin, widely considered to be his second in command at the Wagner Group. Other passengers are reported to have included Valery Chekalov, the head of Wagner security, Yevgeny Makaryan, who has been described as Prigozhin’s bodyguard, and other Wagner Group personnel.

While it is unlikely that we will ever know for sure how, why, and on whose orders Prigozhin might have been killed, it is far less difficult to imagine that he finally paid the price for his march on Moscow at the head of a column of his Wagner Group troops at the end of June 2023. The deaths of other top Wagner personnel in the crash spell the likely end of the group in its current form.

At the time, Prigozhin went to great lengths to paint his mutiny as directed against the top brass in the Russian Ministry of Defense and not as a direct challenge to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Yet the brief episode exposed cracks in the regime. Unopposed by local and regional security forces, Prigozhin’s troops were able to take Rostov-on-Don and the headquarters of Russia’s southern military district and command center of the war in Ukraine. They also marched to within 125 miles of the Russian capital, again mostly unopposed.

Following a deal brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin called off his rebellion, agreeing to relocate his men and himself to Belarus and Wagner’s overseas bases — mostly in Africa.

Despite some concerns over an increasing Wagner presence closer to Nato members Poland and Lithuania, little of the agreed relocation seems to have happened. Prigozhin himself appears to have enjoyed significant freedom of movement in Russia in the weeks after his abortive mutiny, including making an appearance on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa summit at the end of July.

Putin’s Purges

Though abrupt, his death is not unexpected. Under Putin, a former KGB operative himself, Russia has carried out several high-profile assassinations and assassination attempts, including in the UK and Germany, to go after alleged traitors and Putin critics.

Many opposition figures in Russia have either died mysteriously or been assassinated. The list includes figures such as Alexei Navalny (who survived the Novichok poisoning), former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, and journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Meanwhile, some regime critics may have thought themselves to be beyond his reach in the UK or other countries, have also been disposed of. These include oligarch and former friend turned critic, Boris Berezovsky, and former spies Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal, who were both poisoned (although Skripal survived) have been targeted.

Putin’s message here has been clear for two decades: opposition will not be tolerated and will probably have fatal consequences.

Prigozhin’s likely assassination reaffirms this message spectacularly. But it is not the only step that Putin has taken to reassert control. On the day of Prigozhin’s death, one of his presumptive allies in the military establishment, Sergei Surovikin — a former commander of Russian forces in Ukraine — was apparently dismissed as head of the Russian aerospace forces. This followed weeks of speculation following his disappearance after the Prigozhin mutiny.

Other top military officials critical of Russia’s conduct of the war in Ukraine, including the commander of the Russia 58th Combined Arms Army, Ivan Popov, were dismissed. Other officials, considered close to Prigozhin, including the deputy head of military intelligence, Vladimir Alexeyev, are still unaccounted for.

Outside the military, alleged critics of Putin’s war in Ukraine have not been safe either. A series of mysterious deaths struck fear into Russian oligarchs in the months after the full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine began in February 2022. Since then, criticism from the Russian business elite has been muted.

The apparent assassination of Prigozhin would therefore seem to be business as usual for Putin. It was foreshadowed in the Russian president’s speech on June 24, the morning after Prigozhin’s mutiny began, when he vowed to punish the “traitors,” as he described them.

Back to Business As Usual?

Prigozhin’s demise also draws a line under the apparent power struggle within the Russian military. As the chief architects of the war in Ukraine, the defense minister, Sergey Shoigu, and chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, are the most obvious beneficiaries of Prigozhin’s death and the wider purges of critics inside and outside the military.

Putin, and his inner circle, clearly have prevailed on this occasion. This is not surprising, given how little direct and public support Prigozhin received over the course of his mutiny. In this sense, Putin’s regime is still highly effective and has demonstrated its capacity to survive domestic challenges.

But the underlying problem — a disastrous military campaign in Ukraine — has not gone away with the death of Prigozhin. Putin may have silenced one of the most outspoken critics of the conduct of the war, and have others arrested or murdered, like prominent pro-war bloggers Igor Girkin and Vladen Tatarsky. But many who share Prigozhin’s misgivings without backing him publicly will have survived Putin’s clean-up operation.

Putin can be sure that they will now be extra careful not to stand too close to high windows or accept cups of tea from anyone connected with Russia’s security services. But this may not be the only lesson they have learned from Prigozhin’s demise — and that will likely worry the Kremlin and increase the paranoia of Putin and those around him.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.