Translated material
"He is needed in the ranks"
President Medvedev visited the wounded head of Ingushetia
Dmitry Medvedev visited the Institute of Surgery named after. Vishnevsky in Moscow, where the President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov had previously been taken, seriously wounded as a result of the assassination attempt on him in Nazran. From a conversation between the Russian president and doctors, it became clear that the head of the republic’s condition was serious, and fears were confirmed that as a result of the terrorist attack he also received damage to internal organs, which were not immediately detected. However, doctors noted that Mr. Evkurov’s condition is stable and there are hopes for his recovery.As for the investigation into the terrorist attack itself, so far the special services have not been able to make much progress. At first, information appeared about the arrest of the first suspects and even about the identification of the suicide bomber who blew up Mr. Yevkurov’s motorcade with the help of a car filled with explosives. However, later both the UPC and the FSB officially denied this.
Dmitry Medvedev arrived at the Institute. Vishnevsky shortly before midnight, just a couple of hours after Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was taken there. The president was unable to communicate with him - the head of Ingushetia was under the influence of anesthetics in a state of artificial sleep, on artificial ventilation. The director of the institute, academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Professor Vladimir Fedorov, his deputy Andrei Fedorov and the head of the department of abdominal surgery Andrei Kreger told the president about his state of health.
“He received serious injuries,” Vladimir Fedorov told Mr Medvedev. -- Damaged skull, chest and liver. On the spot (immediately after the assassination attempt. - Ed. ) maximum assistance was provided, and we have no complaints against the doctors (local - Ed. ). But Evkurov’s condition remains grave.” When asked by the president whether Mr. Evkurov was able to replace the large loss of blood, the professor reported: “Partially replaced. This is now ongoing and his blood pressure has risen to near normal levels. It is still quite difficult to judge the effectiveness of all therapeutic measures. 20 leading professors of the institute are studying Evkurov. Everything that needs to be done is done. A full computed tomographic examination has already been done and the nature of the injuries has been established. We are now focused on the volume of lesions and some changes in bone fragments. In any case, we are already getting our bearings, and, naturally, the treatment will continue as planned.”
President Medvedev, in turn, asked doctors to quickly return the head of Ingushetia to duty. “We, of course, will monitor and worry about all these processes,” he said. — Everything that is necessary medically, of course, I hope, will be done, because we need Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in service. He is truly an active officer who has really begun to change the situation in Ingushetia. And the fact that the bandits hit him is a completely understandable thing, because it was he who was the center of making the toughest and most correct decisions.”
Already yesterday afternoon, a representative of the Ministry of Health and Social Development reported that Mr. Yevkurov’s condition remains serious.
As for the investigation into the assassination attempt itself, yesterday the investigators were unable to obtain any fundamentally new information. At first, news agency sources in the intelligence services tried to portray the appearance of vigorous activity. At first it was reported that four suspects were detained for involvement in the assassination attempt on Mr. Yevkurov, then about ten. At the same time, these sources announced that they had allegedly managed to identify the criminal who was in the car bomb. It was assumed that this could be a resident of the Ingush city of Malgobek Pyatimat Mutalieva. At the same time, it was indicated that she could have acted out of revenge, since at one time her two militant brothers were killed in clashes with the special services.
One of them, Khasan Mutaliev, according to investigators, was killed on February 12 of this year in a private home in Nazran, which the police tried to storm. Several militants holed up in the house first fired back fiercely, and then detonated the stock of explosives stored in the basement. As a result, then four security officers were killed and another 18 were injured. Another brother of Mutalieva died in a clash with police in 2007.
However, later representatives of the FSB and SKP officially denied this information. Representatives of the departments reported that Pyatimat Mutalieva is alive and well and therefore could not have been a suicide bomber, she lives in her house, and on the morning of the day of the terrorist attack she took an exam, and has nothing to do with what happened. The Investigative Committee also denied information about the detention of at least one suspect.
Yesterday, investigators and experts were still working at the scene of the emergency, collecting evidence. And the circumstances of the terrorist attack themselves, of a purely technical nature, were just being established.
The assassination attempt on Mr. Yevkurov occurred at about 8.30 am on Monday on the Caucasus federal highway on the outskirts of Nazran, as he was heading to work in Magas, where a complex of administrative buildings of the republican authorities is located. His motorcade consisted of three cars - a police Mercedes escort, an armored Mercedes limousine of Mr. Yevkurov himself, and a jeep with security. Traffic during the passage of the President of Ingushetia was never blocked. This was also technically problematic - there is only one road from Nazran to Magas, and most of it runs along the federal highway. And completely blocking it means creating huge traffic jams. Usually the escort car in front only gave instructions to passing cars to clear the road by pulling over to the side of the road.
The terrorist (or terrorists - for now it is only assumed that there was only one bomber) was in the Toyota Camry. At the direction of the motorcade escort vehicle, the driver of the Japanese foreign car pulled over to the side of the road, but when Mr. Evkurov’s limousine was in close proximity, he began to steer onto the road again and detonated the bomb. Experts estimated the approximate power of the mine at 70-100 kg of TNT. The explosion was so powerful that the fragments of the Toyota were scattered over a radius of 500 meters, and even the engine was thrown almost 400 meters away. Mr. Evkurov’s armored limousine was thrown several tens of meters into a ditch, and it also caught fire. Of the four people in it, one - a security guard - died on the spot. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov himself, his brother Uvays, who headed the personal security of the head of the republic, and the driver received burns and so-called polytraumas - damage to many organs due to a strong dynamic impact. The president and his companions were rescued by security officers from their escort vehicles and pulled out of the burning limousine.
It is clear that the terrorist or terrorists (if there were several of them) who were in the Toyota were torn into small pieces, from which it is almost impossible to determine not only their identity, but even their gender. Already yesterday evening, a representative of the UPC officially announced that so far the investigation does not have any information even about whether the terrorist was a man or a woman. “During the initial inspection of the scene, the biological remains of the suicide bomber were seized, and therefore a genetic examination was ordered to identify his identity,” the UPC noted.
It is worth noting that such a study is a complex and lengthy procedure, it takes several months. In addition, genetic testing alone cannot establish a person’s identity. Its results can only be compared with the analyzes of alleged relatives, and only if they coincide, is it concluded that this is exactly the person whom investigators suspect. That is, operatives will still need to identify those who could be a suicide bomber, then find their relatives, and only then the name of the suspect will become known.
In the meantime, we have managed to find out that the exploded Toyota had license plates that were stolen at one time from one of the capital’s car owners. The Toyota itself, as investigators assumed, had also been stolen somewhere. Although the serial numbers of the body and components of the foreign car, by which one can determine its “fate”, given that the Toyota was torn into pieces that were badly burned, will also become known based on the results of the examination. As reported by the Investigative Committee, more than a dozen different examinations have been appointed as part of the investigation.
The investigation into the assassination attempt on Mr. Yevkurov will most likely drag on for a long time. The intelligence services have several ways to uncover it - waiting for the results of examinations, searching for witnesses who could see how and who resold or stored the Toyota used by terrorists, operational work through agents. But all this involves painstaking and long work.