"Serial" associates

Nationalist students, investigators believe, were preparing a series of terrorist attacks in Moscow

The Zamoskvoretsky Court of Moscow yesterday morning issued a warrant for the arrest of capital students Oleg Kostyrev and Ilya Tikhomirov, accused of committing an explosion at the Cherkizovsky market last Monday, which killed ten people. And by the evening the capital's prosecutor's office filed charges under Art. 105-2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (murder of two or more persons, committed in a generally dangerous manner based on national hatred) and the third suspect in the terrorist attack - also student Valery Zhukovtsov. It is expected that he will also be arrested soon.

The investigative team of employees of the city prosecutor's office for combating banditry, the FSB and the MUR yesterday continued to work with the detainees and check their connections with certain fascist or nationalist associations. “At the moment, more than a dozen names appear on the list we have compiled. We communicated with these people, but it is too early to talk about the results. There is very painstaking work ahead. The acquaintances of our trio, “Nazis” and skinheads, having learned about how many people died and that the attackers were caught, in a conversation with us, of course, disavow friendship with the detained “explosives.” In addition, in conversations with us, they renounce their views, realizing what this threatens them with,” a source in the Central Internal Affairs Directorate close to the investigation told Vremya Novostey.

In addition, Moscow prosecutor Yuri Semin yesterday confirmed the information published in our newspaper that one of the arrested - Tikhomirov - “has already come to the attention of the police” (the Vremya Novostei newspaper reported in its issue of August 23 that one of the participants in the explosion was registered as a skinhead) .

During interrogations, according to investigators, the accused themselves actively testify. “In general terms, this is the picture that emerges,” a source in the intelligence services told us. - According to the detainees, Tikhomirov and Kostyrev, out of a feeling of hatred towards non-Russians, wanted to blow them up, but could not choose a target. After consulting with Zhukovtsov, they “drew” several places of terrorist attacks, stopping at the Cherkizovsky market, where there are many, as they put it, “chocks” and “yellows” who also behave badly towards Russians. They speak of this explosion as a one-off in their Nazi career. According to operational data, this is not their first event of this kind against “non-Russians.” In addition, there is confidence that they were preparing a series of explosions. Especially considering the list of objects found among the detainees where they either gathered or had already carried out “actions”, and the fact that he did not make the 5 kg of explosives found in Kostyrev’s dormitory out of sporting interest.

True, on the questions of how they prepared the terrorist attack and how they distributed the roles, the testimonies of the detainees differ. “According to one version, although Zhukovtsov was a skinhead, he was kind of against the explosion, maybe he was a coward. He tried to dissuade his friends, and at the last moment he simply ran away, although he should have helped them escape,” law enforcement officials noted.

Yesterday, a Vremya Novostey correspondent managed to talk with representatives of the authorities of Udmurtia, where one of the main accused in the terrorist attack, Oleg Kostyrev, came to Moscow to go to college. Thus, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic said that they heard that their fellow countryman was involved in the explosion at the Moscow market. True, local police officers clarified that Kostyrev is not actually from Glazov, as Moscow investigators said earlier, but from Votkinsk, a small town 60 km from Izhevsk: “They haven’t come to us from Moscow about this yet. Kostyrev has rarely been here since he went to study. He is described as a quiet, calm young man, he did not express any nationalist views, and did not hang out with skinheads. We actually don’t have skinheads here. So, three or four idiots will get drunk, shout and disperse,” summed up the Udmurt Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Alexey IVLEV