Political Assassinations In Russia: How It Really Works

The Kholodov case

Most have forgotten one of the most notorious crimes of the 1990s: the murder of Dmitry Kholodov, a correspondent for the Moscow-based daily Moskovsky Komsomolets who had long written about theft in the military and about Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, a Yeltsin friend.

Grachev publicly called Kholodov an enemy of the army and Russia and demanded that his subordinates “sort him out.” They prepared a suitcase, supposedly containing documents, which they handed over to Kholodov. But instead of documents, it was filled with explosives.

After his main critic was killed in an explosion on October 17, 1994, Grachev told the investigating committee and the court that by “sort out” the journalist, he meant "talk it over." If his subordinates had misunderstood the semantic nuances of the term, then “it was not the problem of the Minister of Defense,” he said.

Yeltsin immediately made it clear that his friend Grachev was untouchable.

At first, the killers and their co-conspirators went on the run, and after their capture they gave detailed confessions. But to make sure Grachev would never end up in pre-trial detention, they retracted their statements. As a result, all the accused were acquitted by the court. Under Putin, they received millions of rubles in state compensation for illegal criminal prosecution.

Yeltsin immediately made it clear that his friend was untouchable: “The military and the Minister of Defense… defended democracy in Russia [during the confrontation between the President and Parliament in October 1993]. And, of course, the opposition cannot forgive that to this day. There are therefore different insinuations. The journalist Dmitry Kholodov has died, and we all grieve this... [But] to link (his) death with the Minister of Defense is simply ridiculous.”

Familiar motifs 

Yeltsin clearly had no intention of handing over Grachev: on one side was the murdered journalist; on the other, a faithful comrade who “defended democracy” (that is, Yeltsin’s power). About a year before the Kholodov's elimination, the Grachev had brought in tanks and soldiers to shoot the rebellious Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation, which had opposed Yeltsin.

The now painfully familiar motifs about “discrediting the army” were being sounded even then

The now painfully familiar motifs about “discrediting the army” were being sounded even then. In the mid-1990s, one of the accused in the Kholodov murder case tried to convince the investigator that the investigation was ruining the Russian armed forces, in the interests of Western intelligence services.

Under Putin, in some cases where the murder or brutal beating of an opponent has directly implicated an official, the crime has been chalked up to excessive zeal of the person's subordinates or acquaintances. That was the case following the November 2010 attack on Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin, and again following the February 2015 murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov .

Putin’s old friend

Kashin was beaten with a rebar in the courtyard of his house, and his jaw, shin and fingers were broken after he called the then-governor of the Pskov region, Andrei Turchak, “shitty” in one of his comments. Turchak, the son of Putin’s old acquaintance Anatoly Turchak, demanded an apology from the journalist and gave him 24 hours to do so. Kashin did not apologize. The investigation found that the journalist was beaten by employees of a company under the Turchak family’s St. Petersburg holding (“Leninets”).

One of the participants in the attack testified that Turchak Jr. had ordered the beating. In the end, however, the investigation concluded that crime's mastermind was a long-time acquaintance of the Turchaks, the ex-manager of their enterprise, a former assistant to the Minister of Defense and the head of the ministry’s department of external relations, Alexander Gorbunov, who independently decided to avenge the insulted governor.

Putin’s old friend, head of the Rostec state corporation Sergei Chemezov, stood up for Gorbunov, saying that he “knows him as a positive person on all fronts.” Gorbunov was released from pre-trial detention in 2015.

Dear brother

Nemtsov was shot on a bridge directly opposite the Kremlin. The primary suspect in organizing the murder was Ruslan Geremeev, the former deputy commander of the Chechen battalion “North,” but his name was dropped from the case. Russian law enforcement officers were never able to interrogate him, and they could not even enter his house in Chechnya. All of this because Geremeev is a close associate of Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.

At the end of last year, this “dear brother” (as Kadyrov calls Geremeev), who would “courageously fulfill any assigned tasks,” was appointed commander of the Chechen Sheikh Mansur Battalion.

Executioners and organizers do not always need clear orders.

Kadyrov, who does little to constrain himself when making public statements on slippery topics, has long opened a window into that part of Russian reality – that is, murders without direct instructions – which is difficult for Western politicians and intelligence agencies to understand.

In this reality, executioners and organizers do not always need clear orders. Sometimes it is sufficient for them to sensitively grasp the desires of the authorities, to hear hints, to see those who displease their superiors and to take on the “burden of responsibility.”

In 2020, when Kadyrov was once again outraged by certain Novaya Gazeta publications, he angrily and publicly warned: “That’s it, I’m sick of it! If you want us to have committed for a crime and become criminals, then say so! One will bear this burden of responsibility and will be punished according to the law. He'll go to jail and get out! But don’t try to make us into bandits, murderers.”

Basic red lines

Yet it is unlikely that future historians will ever find Putin's signatures on any orders for extrajudicial killings. That is because those orders are communicated with verbal hints in the style of very cautious heads of large mafia clans and other criminal communities: to “take care of” this or that person. Those who carry out the orders know very well what the conversation is about. They know that if someone dies, “it is not a problem” for the Russian president.

The 2024 documentary "The Traitors,” which was produced by Alexei Navalny’s own Anti-Corruption Foundation and focuses on Yeltsin, his entourage and oligarchs, has sparked and caused fierce debate and rebukes. These boil down to the fact that everything was more complicated in 1990s.

Russian leaders in the 1990s did not set the most basic red lines for principled proponents of democracy.

The era's main actors were not simply guided by a thirst for power and profit. They say that they had principles, that they had to make difficult choices, and they strove to avoid the present obscurantism by any means – with the seizure of property, convictions, and physical elimination of dissenters, which could have begun even then if Yeltsin had ceded power to the communists. Maybe that is so. But it does not change the essence of the matter.

The people in power, who gave the impression of upholding democratic values, should have established clear rules for the games of politics, business, etc. But for one reason or another they did not cement anything other than basic norms, such as the rule of law — laws that at that time could not keep up with what was happening in reality.

But they did not set what would seem to be the most basic red lines for principled proponents of democracy, such as the fact that that a top official cannot kill his critics with impunity. This practice was enshrined under Yeltsin, and it has only become stronger under Putin.