Orders to Kill

by Amy Knight

  After sixty-seven sessions, the prosecution and defense finished presenting evidence in the Nemtsov trial at the end of May 2017, with a verdict by the jury soon to follow. The lengthy trial yielded few revelations. The motives of the killers remained unclear, and two of the defendants, Eskerkhanov and Bakhaev, appear to have played only a peripheral role in the crime. It is worth noting that a Russian lawyer named Igor Murzin, who has written extensively about the case for the Russian-language website of Garry Kasparov, has argued that Nemtsov’s girlfriend, Anna Duritskaia, was actually an accomplice in the murder. Murzin claims that Duritskaia was a high-priced prostitute who was recruited by the FSB to entrap Nemtsov. After giving evidence to prosecutors immediately after the murder, she was allowed to return home to her native Ukraine and has not appeared as a trial witness.39 Vadim Prokhorov, who has discounted Murzin’s claims about Duritskaia, says that the Nemtsov family is not interested so much in those in the dock for the murder, as in those who ordered and organized it. He has no doubt about the complicity of Putin’s police agencies: “The question isn’t whether the security services were involved, but what role they played—and which security services they were.”40

  Vladimir Kara-Murza

  Nemtsov could have been killed in a number of other, less blatant ways than a shooting so close to the Kremlin. The murder had the clear purpose of intimidating democratic oppositionist. As Garry Kasparov, now in exile in the United States, observed, the crime sent “a chilling signal to everybody; it spread fear and terror.” But Nemtsov’s allies were not to be deterred. The FSB raided Nemtsov’s apartment immediately after the murder and took away his computer, along with his research notes for his planned report on Russian military aggression in Ukraine. Olga Shorina, who had been Nemtsov’s closest aide for many years, assured me, when I spoke with her on the telephone in Moscow a few days after the murder, that she and her colleagues had copies of all of Nemtsov’s research, and despite his death they published “Putin.War.”41 Without the imposing presence of Nemtsov, their efforts lost a great deal of momentum, but they’ve persevered nonetheless.

  One of Nemtsov’s close collaborators and a leading member of PARNAS, the People’s Freedom Party, was Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has played a key part in the effort to continue what Nemtsov had been striving for—exposing the facts about the Putin regime. Educated at Cambridge University, Kara-Murza became a journalist and author, while at the same time engaging in politics. In 2001, at only twenty, he joined the Union of Right Forces and in 2003 ran unsuccessfully for the State Duma. He is the coordinator of Open Russia, a democratic initiative established and funded by the exiled Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky (released from prison by Putin in late 2013 and residing now in Switzerland), and a regular contributor to the journal World Affairs.

  Like his mentor Nemtsov, Kara-Murza was a forceful advocate for the U.S. Magnitsky Law. In July 2012, he testified about the proposed law before the Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress, describing it as “a pro-Russian bill which provides a much-needed measure of accountability for those who continue to violate the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens.… The Kremlin’s reaction to this [proposed] legislation shows that it hits them precisely where it hurts.”42 In late April 2015, Kara-Murza appeared before the U.S. Congress with another member of his opposition party, Mikhail Kasyanov. They presented a list of eight names of Russian television journalists who had created an atmosphere of “hate, intolerance, and violence” against Nemtsov in the months that led up to his murder and urged congressmen to add these names to the Russian persons denied visas to enter the United States under the Magnitsky Law.43

  A few weeks later, on May 26, 2015, Kara-Murza collapsed at his office in Moscow with an undiagnosed illness. He was taken to the hospital and lapsed into a coma, which lasted over a week. His wife wanted him evacuated for treatment abroad, but he was too ill to be transferred. All his body systems shut down, and doctors gave him only a 5 percent chance of living. Miraculously, Kara-Murza survived, but not without residual complications. It was months before he could return to work. He was understandably cautious in explaining the cause of his mysterious illness, determined by doctors to be poisoning by an unknown substance. He said only that “it was not an accident” and that it was connected to his opposition activities in Russia. Later, in December 2016, Kara-Murza requested the Russian Investigative Committee to initiate a criminal case on his attempted murder, but nothing came of it.44

  Not to be deterred, Kara-Murza continued his political campaigning as a leader of PARNAS and his work for Open Russia. In late 2016, he traveled throughout Russia promoting a film he had made in honor of Nemtsov, which was sponsored by the Khodorkovsky Foundation. The film, Nemtsov, was screened in several major cities. In early January 2017, Kara-Murza submitted a letter to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was conducting hearings on the confirmation of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. The letter reported that violence against opposition figures and journalists in Russia was an increasing phenomenon and seemed to be a warning about Tillerson’s cozy relationship, as past CEO of ExonMobil, with members of the Kremlin elite, in particular Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin. The Kremlin, which favored the candidacy of Tillerson (he had said that he thought sanctions against Russia were ineffective) cannot have been happy about Kara-Murza’s letter.45

  Less than a month later, on February 2, 2017, Kara-Murza was hospitalized again because of poisoning, while in Moscow. His symptoms were identical to those of the prior incident, and he had to be put into a medically induced coma for almost a week. The White House had no comment on the poisoning. Indeed, on February 5, while Kara-Murza was at death’s door, Trump insisted to Fox News host Bill O’Reilly that he respected Putin and when reminded by O’Reilly that Putin was a killer, responded: “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, you think our country’s so innocent? You think our country’s so innocent?”46

  By contrast, the poisoning triggered a strong response from U.S. lawmakers, including from Senate Republican John McCain, who said on the Senate floor on February 7 that Vladimir Kara-Murza had been poisoned because “he kept faith with his ideals in confrontation with a cruel and dangerous autocracy.” In a pointed rebuff to Trump, McCain had this to say: “Vladimir knew that Putin is a killer, and that he might very well be the next target. Vladimir knew there was no moral equivalence between the United States and Putin’s Russia. And anyone who would make such a suggestion maligns the character of our great nation and does a disservice to all those whose blood is on Putin’s hands.”47

  Kara-Murza’s wife, Evgeniia, also made her views known. In an exclusive interview with ABC News the day after Trump made his comments to O’Reilly, she had this advice for the U.S. president: “[Trump] must know that such people as Vladimir Putin are not friends. And they cannot be dealt with on friendly terms.”48 Kara-Murza, thankfully, has survived this second attempt on his life, but his horrifying experience apparently did not convince Trump that he should give up his hope of a close alliance with the Russian leader.

  Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov with Putin.

  (Photograph courtesy of ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/AFP/Getty Images)

  13

  KADYROV, PUTIN, AND POWER IN THE KREMLIN

  The impunity and omnipotence of Ramzan Kadyrov depends on the support of … Putin. As long as Putin supports him, nobody will touch a hair on Kadyrov’s head, even if he kills us all.

  —Lyudmila Alexeyeva, human-rights activist and head of the Moscow Helsinki Group

  Cops are afraid of the prosecutors, prosecutors are afraid of the Investigative Committee, the Investigative Committee is afraid of the FSB, the FSB is afraid of Kadyrov, Kadyrov is afraid of Putin, and Putin is afraid of everybody.

  —Opposition democrat Roman Dobrokhotov on Twitter, August 2016

  Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of Chechnya since 2007, has figured consistently in this narrative because of the pivotal role he has played in ensuring Putin’s hold on
power. As one Russia expert expressed it, “It’s important to remember that the ‘Chechen Scenario’ has been a common theme throughout Putin’s rule—in fact, he owes his rule to it.”1 Kadyrov has run Chechnya as his own little country, although it is a part of Russia, terrorizing its citizens with violence, kidnappings, and extrajudicial killings, carried out on his behalf by the notorious “Kadyrovtsy.” All this is supported by the Kremlin, which needs to keep rebellious Chechens in check. At the same time, Kadyrov has acted as Putin’s “hatchet man” in getting rid of the Russian president’s troublesome critics.

  Kadyrov had direct encounters with some of the victims of the political murders I have discussed. It was Anna Politkovskaya, after her terrifying face-to-face meeting with him at his residence outside Grozny in the summer of 2004, who first labeled Kadyrov “the Kremlin’s Chechen dragon.”2 Natalia Estemirova, as noted, had a similar frightening experience with Kadyrov not long before she was gunned down in Chechnya in 2009. And Boris Nemtsov had also been directly threatened by Kadyrov. Nemtsov was in Chechnya in December 2002 to attend a congress of Chechen people, presided over by Ramzan’s father, Akhmat Kadyrov, at the time acting head of the administration of Chechnya. The discussion centered around the future political structure of Chechnya, with a strong presidency being advocated by most of those present. Nemtsov spoke out against the idea and suggested instead a more representative form of government. As he was leaving the congress hall, he was confronted by the younger Kadyrov, his eyes blazing, who told Nemtsov that he deserved to be killed for what he had said. Nemtsov recalled: “I can’t say that I was frightened, because the Chechens who were around him started to say that Ramzan was joking. But in his eyes I saw that it was no joke. In his eyes I saw hatred.”3

  Given that the killers in the cases described in this book were often Chechens who were either subordinate to Kadyrov or closely connected with him, it is highly likely that Kadyrov had a role in the murders. But what about Putin? As mentioned earlier, former Chechen government leader Akhmed Zakaev insists that Kadyrov would not have embarked on his criminal ventures without the approval of Putin. But Kadyrov, as demonstrated again and again, is a loose cannon. Is Putin not playing a dangerous game in outsourcing murders to a man who, by most accounts, is an unpredictable psychopath?

  Kadyrov’s Rise to Power in Chechnya

  Both Akhmat Kadyrov and his son Ramzan fought on the side of Chechen rebels against Russia during the first Chechen war in 1994–96. But they switched their allegiance to the Kremlin after Russian troops invaded Chechnya in the autumn of 1999. As a reward, newly elected Russian president Putin appointed the senior Kadyrov to be the leader of Chechnya in 2000. Ramzan, then in his mid-twenties, became head of his father’s security forces, which numbered around a thousand men. This force would become the stronghold for the younger Kadyrov’s rise to power, although he was not able to prevent enemies of his father from assassinating him in May 2004. The only thing that kept Ramzan from succeeding his father at that time was his age. He was not eligible to run for the presidency of Chechnya until he reached thirty, so the Chechen Minister of the Interior, Alu Alkhanov, supported, of course, by Russian federal authorities, was “elected” president in August 2004.

  Presumably pressured by Moscow, Alkhanov allowed Kadyrov’s personal guard corps to be officially integrated into his government structure, becoming a legal armed unit, and in May 2006 he appointed Ramzan his prime minister. This power-sharing did not work well and ended up in armed confrontations between security forces loyal to Alkhanov and those loyal to Kadyrov. Kadyrov emerged the winner. In early 2007, Putin accepted Alkhanov’s resignation and appointed Kadyrov acting Chechen president. A month later, Kadyrov was officially elected to that office. Thus began the complex alliance between Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov that would carry them through a decade of mutual dictatorships over their people.

  Of course, Kadyrov’s fiefdom, with a population of only 1.4 million, is small, and he is dependent on the Kremlin’s constant flow of money to finance his government. But he rules Chechnya with an iron hand. According to a report by Ilya Yashin, a former ally of Nemtsov and a leader of the opposition party Parnas, “Ramzan Kadyrov enjoys practically unlimited authority in the Republic of Chechnya. The parliament, the media, and the judicial system are all controlled by the Chechen leader. Kadyrov has said that Vladimir Putin is the only factor limiting his personal authority in the republic: ‘I am Putin’s man. His word is law for me. How can one not worship him? Putin is a gift from God.’”4 As political commentator Dmitry Oreshkin points out: “This is an ‘inside out empire,’ a case in which it is not the large country that dictates its own interests but, on the contrary, it is a small colony that holds its parent country by the throat and wheedles as much money out of it as it needs.”5

  Kadyrov’s Death Squads

  Even before he became Chechnya’s president, Kadyrov employed killers to take out his enemies, with complete impunity. The first such attack was on November 18, 2006, when Movladi Baisarov was gunned down on Leninskii Prospect, in the heart of Moscow. Baisarov had headed the senior Kadyrov’s security service but then formed his own military unit in Chechnya, subordinate to the Russian FSB, after Akhmat’s assassination. Under pressure from Ramzan Kadyrov’s forces, Baisarov fled to Moscow, where he voiced public criticism of Kadyrov as a “khan” with “Asiatic habits” and became Kadyrov’s avowed enemy.

  In response to the killing, State Duma deputy Sergei Mitrokhin, a member of the liberal Yabloko party, told Kommersant: I don’t understand how the Chechen [special forces] could act on the territory of Moscow—couldn’t the Moscow GUVD [Internal police] [or] FSB deal with it themselves? The suspicion arises that Kadyrov put out a contract on Baisarov and that the federal authorities gave permission for it to be carried out. The country’s leadership must be responsible for who in the country carries out operational activities, who is allowed to carry out the death penalty in Russia, and who Ramzan will dispose of next.6

  This assassination was followed in September 2008 by the murder, also on the streets of Moscow, of Ruslan Iamadaev, a State Duma deputy from Chechnya. Iamadaev was one of three brothers who were part of a powerful and rich Chechen clan that opposed Kadyrov. The Iamadaevs had fought on the side of Chechen rebels during the first Chechen war, but then, like Kadyrov and his father, had switched to the side of the Kremlin. Ruslan, forty-seven, was shot to death by an unknown assailant as he sat in his car during rush-hour traffic after a visit to the Kremlin. In April 2009, a Moscow court convicted two Chechen natives of committing the murder.

  A few months later, in January 2009, Imar Israilov, a former member of Kadyrov’s security guard living in exile in Vienna, was gunned down there. Austrian police, after conducting an intensive investigation, concluded that Kadyrov and his top aide, Shaa Turlaev, were behind the murder. A representative of Human Rights Watch said: “The conclusions reached by the Austrian Prosecutor’s Office about Ramzan Kadyrov … should prompt the Russian government to finally take the necessary steps to restore the rule of law in Chechnya.”7

  The Kadyrov forces went after another of the Iamadaev brothers, Sulim, in March 2009, this time in Dubai. Sulim had been the commander of the pro-Moscow Vostok Division in Chechnya before fleeing to Dubai because of threats from the Kadyrov clan. He was shot to death in his car in an underground garage. The Dubai government accused Kadyrov’s cousin, Adam Delimkhanov, a member of Russia’s parliament, of organizing the murder. They requested his extradition, to no avail.

  In July 2009, Isa Iamadaev was the victim of an attempt on his life in Moscow, believed to have been organized by Kadyrov. He subsequently returned to Chechnya and made peace with Kadyrov. Months later, in November 2009, Viskan Abdurakhmanov, an avowed enemy of Kadyrov, was found dead on the street in Baku, Azerbaijan. Abdurakhmanov had been raising support from the Chechen diaspora in Turkey and the Near East for rebels opposed to Kadyrov’s rule.

  Kadyrov as Supreme Ruler

/>   In a February 2016 profile of Kadyrov for The New Yorker, Joshua Yaffa observed that the Chechen leader “is a skillful and popular politician, one of the few in modern Russia, where nearly all officials tend to be charmless functionaries.” He went on to say that while Kadyrov “can be brutal and severe … he can also appear genuine, even sensitive—another rarity in Putin-era politics.” Yaffa favorably quoted Kadyrov’s adviser, the journalist Timur Aliyev, as saying: “I once believed in this image of him [Kadyrov] as a brutal guy. But then I got a chance to meet him.… He thinks of himself not just as the head of the Chechen republic but as a person who looks after the well-being of each individual.”8

  These observations hardly square with those of human-rights activists in Chechnya or the Chechens who have suffered as a result of family members abducted and killed, or their houses burned down in retaliation for suspected opposition to Kadyrov. By Russian accounts, including a documentary produced by Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia Foundation and the report by Yashin, Kadyrov has created a huge personal army, which may number up to eighty thousand men and which he has exclusive control over, despite the fact that his republic is part of the Russian Federation. The members of his army, which includes the Sever Battalion that was implicated in Nemtsov’s murder, behave with complete impunity, terrorizing the civilian population.9

  The human-rights group Memorial, in a 2016 report, presented a similar picture, noting that “‘a state within a state’ has essentially been created in the Chechen Republic, first during the long years of struggle against separatists, and then during the fight against the terrorist underground using methods of state terror. The cure turned out to be worse than the disease.” Memorial went on to point out that “Chechnya’s relative stability is only maintained by the constant, brutal, blatant use of force. The existence on the territory of our country of an enclave where a totalitarian regime has been established represents a serious danger for the future of the rule of law and the protection of the rights of all citizens in Russia.”10