Whose motive?

Who ordered Nikita Tikhonov to kill Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova

After the arrest of two suspects in the murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova, the press and public speeches of public figures came up with quick conclusions of two varieties: the crime...

After the arrest of two suspects in the murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova, the press and public speeches of public figures came up with quick conclusions of two varieties: the crime was solved or scapegoats were found.

There are no grounds for these two polar opinions.

The guilt of those arrested has yet to be proven, most likely in a jury trial. Recognition of one of them is not enough. The full list of accomplices in the crime is also unclear. The editors have no doubts that they exist.

The answer to the most important question is also unclear - who is the customer? The motive of personal hatred presented by the lawyer of the killer Tikhonov can help the suspect (together with remorse and sincere confession) to remove a number of aggravating circumstances from Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and achieve a non-life imprisonment. But this should not mislead the investigators either. Versions about the possible customer of the murder must be worked out to the end: did Tikhonov himself come up with this idea, did someone use his attitude towards Markelov, stimulating the crime with money or “ideological” pumping? These questions require an exhaustive and conclusive answer.

Of course, the arrest of suspects in the case, which from the very beginning was called "hanging", is a success for both investigators and operatives. As far as Novaya Gazeta knows, during the investigation a gigantic amount of work has been done on several versions. It can be assumed that the mass arrests of Russian Nazis that swept across the country are the result of work within the framework of one of them.

Only all this still does not mean that the crime has been fully solved, you can put an end to it and calm down.

The suspect could have motives to hate Markelov

Virtually nothing was known about the investigation into the murder of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova, one of the most resonant criminal cases of 2009, for all these nine months, except for the leaks of information that occurred in the first days. The employees who allowed them were removed from the investigation immediately after the case was transferred to the UPC. Since then - only the statement of the head of the Investigative Committee Bastrykin: the main version is the Nazis.

On November 3 and 4, just at the height of the officially permitted fascist sabbat on the Day of National Unity, two suspects, Yevgenia Khasis and Nikita Tikhonov, were detained and then arrested by the Basmanny Court.

Motive In assessing the motive for the murder, it is quite possible to join the opinion of experts from the SOVA center, which monitors the activities of Russian Nazis. Experts believe that "the candidacy of Nikita Tikhonov as a suspect in this crime looks very plausible." Tikhonov has already confessed, stating his personal dislike for Markelov. And this is quite logical - Tikhonov has been wanted since 2006 for his participation in the murder of a young anti-fascist Alexander Ryukhin. Stanislav also represented the interests of the mother of the deceased.

It is worth recalling this story three years ago. At a music club on the outskirts of Moscow, two punk-hardcore concert goers who fought off the crowd were attacked by a group of fascists (as it turned out later, consisting of members of the Slavic Union, Format 18 and OB88 groups). One of the attackers, Alexander Parinov, nicknamed Romanian, stabbed Ryukhin in the heart.

Until that day, Tikhonov's life looked quite successful - a graduate of Moscow State University, a sought-after journalist and political PR man. Perhaps Tikhonov would not have been very afraid of going to prison (the activities of the Nazis were then very reluctantly investigated by law enforcement agencies), if it were not for the lawyer Markelov, thanks to whose professionalism not only the immediate killer was put on the wanted list - a "colleague" in OB88 Rumyn (Parinov ), but also Tikhonov. It was Markelov who made every effort to identify all participants in the attack. Three were convicted: Andrey Antsiferov (Tsifer) - "Slavic Union", Vasily Reutsky, Alexander Shitov (Schultz) - "Format 18", but not for murder, but for hooliganism. Romanian (on the run), Tikhonov (on the run) and Andrey Bormotov, who, according to the investigation, drove the attackers to the scene of the crime, were accused of the murder.

brigade

What is the "Joint Brigade 88", which included Nikita Tikhonov? "88" means "Heil Hitler", the brigade itself appeared in the late 90s and initially claimed the role of a coordinating center dealing with riots and less visible acts of terror in Moscow. OB88 gathered people for mass fights, and quite successfully - for example, 600 people came to disrupt the performance of rapper Decl in the Olimpiysky Sports Complex. OB88 had agents of influence among almost all club communities of football hooligans in the capital and the most serious groups of skinheads who were not associated with "near football". Recently "famous" Maksim Bazylev (the same age as Tikhonov, born in 1980, member of the NSO, who opened his veins in a pre-trial detention center) and Nikolai Korolev (a year younger than him, convicted of an explosion in the Cherkizovsky market) also "passed through the school" of OB88.

After the pogrom at the Tsaritsyno market in 2001, the brigade encountered some problems from the police. And although only a few fascists were sentenced to ridiculous terms for riots and murders of several people, OB88 had to abandon large-scale actions. Now OB88 exists as a small group that continues to command respect among the Nazis. Its members, for example, collect money from the organizers of Nazi music events and sellers of clothing / paraphernalia to help “comrades-in-arms” in prisons. The youngest members of OB88 may be in their early twenties, the veterans of the structure may be in their thirties.

There were suggestions in the press about Tikhonov's involvement in other murders and about his membership in some kind of nationalist underground militant organization. This is quite possible, but only we can still talk not about OB88, but about some group that is much more carefully conspired. For example, about the mythical yet BORN (Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists), about which nothing is known, except that a statement was posted on Nazi sites in which BORN took responsibility for the murder of Stanislav and Anastasia.

Image

OB88 cooperates with the Russian Image, whose coordinator, Ilya Goryachev, was searched on the night of November 5-6. Moreover, Nikita Tikhonov, together with Goryachev, are co-founders of the magazine of the same name of this organization and studied together at the history department of Moscow State University. Russian Obraz recently issued a statement stating: neither Khasis nor Tikhonov have ever been its members. And formally, the samples do not lie.

Doubts about the participation of a girl, and even with a "such" surname, in the affairs of the Nazis can only overcome superficial observers. Among the Russian Nazis, whose names of organizations begin with the word "Russian", there are quite a lot of people of other nationalities. Suffice it to recall at least the high-profile case of Ryno or the neo-Nazi Javakhishvili. And, by the way, almost all the gangs that ended up in the dock involved girls.

Novaya Gazeta could not get in touch with Goryachev himself, but one of the members of the organization, Yevgeny Valyaev, said that after the registration of the Russian Image, Nikita Tikhonov had some connection with the magazine and even published there, but then moved away from the activities of the publication (“apparently by choosing your path).

Unlike Tikhonov, Khasis had a direct relationship with the Russky Obraz friendly organization, Russian Verdict, which defends far-right activists who have been imprisoned, in particular those accused of crimes on ethnic grounds.

According to the coordinator of the "Russian Verdict" Alexei Baranovsky, Khasis was an activist of this structure. Her duties included monitoring the arrests of young people under "extremist" articles and organizing assistance to them (in particular, "Verdict" collects money and things for prisoners).

Another member of the "Verdict" is lawyer Alexander Vasiliev (he defended Maxim Martsinkevich - Tesak in court). It was him that Khasis demanded in court as a defender. According to Vasiliev, he had an oral agreement with Yevgenia Khasis that he would represent her interests in case of problems with the police. However, at the moment, the lawyer says, there are procedural obstacles to joining the case. Novaya Gazeta's interlocutor in nationalist circles elaborated on the situation, explaining that the lawyer Vasiliev himself could be brought to the case as a witness and the issue of his participation in the defense of Yevgenia Khasis would be resolved at the beginning of the week.

Not being a member of the Russian Image organization, Tikhonov, obviously, nevertheless did a lot for its formation. The Russian Image brand itself has existed in the Nazi environment for a long time and only a year and a half ago took shape as a public organization. At first it was a party of ultra-right Serbophiles (there is such an organization in the Balkans - "Obraz"), associated with the semi-underground fan club of the musical group "Kolovrat" (Goryachev just organized a concert for Kolovrat on Bolotnaya Square on November 4).

Then the "Russian Image" began to develop as an intellectual center, trying to pull the most "educated" Nazis to itself. Among other things, the “Russian Image” served as a kind of professional union of fascists working in major media and PR agencies. Members of the tusovka, among other things, actively participated in election campaigns, earning money, introducing nationalist motives into the propaganda of various official parties, establishing connections that, one might assume, helped the Russian Obraz to become a legal organization.

Nikita Tikhonov looks like the most typical representative of these "Nazi-intellectuals". Exchange a promising career as a journalist and PR manager for a federal wanted list? He clearly had something to be angry about. And not only on Markelov. Anastasia Baburova covered the trial of the killers of Ryukhin and other Nazis in a very harsh manner, and secondly, she was an activist in the anti-fascist movement.