Grigory Tumanov about the ambiguity of the charges against Ruslan Makhutdinov: “Now a breakthrough has occurred, because Ruslan Eremeev and Ruslan Makhutdinov have been put on the wanted list. Makhutdinov is a mythical Rusik who previously appeared in testimony and in criminal cases in general. Mythical because no one has seen it. Eremeev is a colleague in the Sever battalion, as we remember, from an influential Chechen family. As for Makhutdinov, he is a very strange character, because he allegedly handed over money for the murder, allegedly handed over guns, and is almost one of the main organizers of all this. It is very difficult to simply assume that Eremeev’s driver, who belongs, as I already said, to an influential Chechen family, could be the organizer and, moreover, the customer of such a resonant crime. That is, it looks very strange so far. It seems to me that the general logic should lead somewhat higher and clearly not to the driver. I don’t know, of course, specific names, specific high-ranking characters from the Chechen government. But obviously such high-profile crimes are unlikely to be committed at the driver level.”

On the reasons for the demands to include Zolotov in the Nemtsov case: “We need tools that allow us to constantly keep the case in sight, because there are so many events around, even the Nemtsov case can be forgotten. And then such a loud initiative appears that does not allow it. If you keep in mind the irritation that such an initiative may cause, it is probably better not to try at all. Remember, in my opinion, Chubais recommended that Zhanna Nemtsova not initiate Kadyrov. There are different opinions on this, of course.”

“Such high-profile crimes are unlikely to be committed at the driver level”