Who will Validol help?

On April 13, two Russian citizens were arrested in Istanbul, suspected of killing Abdulvakhid Edilgireev, a native of Chechnya.

The victim was known as one of the leaders of the North Caucasian separatists, in addition to the war in the Caucasus, he took part in military operations in Syria against the government of Bashar al-Assad and in Ukraine against the pro-Russian militia of Donbass. In addition, the militant was one of the editors of the separatist Internet site "Kavkaz Center" and was a relative of the creator of this resource and the main ideologist of Ichkeria, Movladi Udugov. In November last year, Edilgireev was shot dead in Istanbul in broad daylight on a street not far from his home. In hot pursuit, the crime was not solved, the alleged killers managed to leave for Russia, but when they returned to Turkey on April 4 this year, they were placed under surveillance, and less than 10 days later they were detained.

The suspects had documents in the names of Yuri Anisimov and Alexander Smirnov. But as soon as their photographs appeared in the media, Russian journalists identified Smirnov as a well-known Chechen authority and “decisor” Valid Lurakhmaev, nicknamed “Validol”. As the media has repeatedly reported, he is followed by a whole trail of murders, while the killer, according to some reports, had connections with high-ranking intelligence officers and was involved in a number of cases related to trade in positions and lobbying for state contracts.

In Turkey, no one is surprised by the killings of representatives of the Chechen resistance, while in the overwhelming majority of cases, Chechens also act as killers. In Russia, these cases are not officially commented on, or they claim that they are all the result of internal conflicts in the underground. However, Turkish intelligence agencies believe that either the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, or the Russian intelligence services themselves are behind almost every such incident.

Formally, the Federal Security Service (FSB) was given the right to conduct special operations abroad by Putin's decree in 2003. The first attempt at writing took place in early 2004 in Qatar, where Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, one of the main leaders of Chechen separatism, was killed in an explosion. The killers were detained and turned out to be career officers of the GRU, while it turned out that they delivered the explosives as a diplomatic cargo. A serious international scandal broke out - for more than five years such "experiments" were not carried out abroad. But since 2008, the killings of iconic figures from the Chechen resistance began to be committed regularly, most often in Turkey. At the same time, previous mistakes were also taken into account: the liquidation operation began to be entrusted to agents, and not to personnel officers. In 2008, militants Gadzhi Edilsultanov and Islam Dzhanibekov were killed in Turkey. Moreover, the latter was shot from a Gyurza pistol, which is in service with the Russian special forces. In 2009, former field commander Ali Osaev was shot dead. In 2011, Berg-Khazh Musaev, Rustam Altemirov and Zaurbek Amriev were killed. In 2013, a Turkish citizen with Chechen roots, Medet Unlu, who sympathized with the Chechen separatists and supported them since the time of Dzhokhar Dudayev, was killed. Finally, in March 2015, Turko Sadaev was poisoned in Istanbul according to a scenario similar to that in which the famous militant Khattab was poisoned.

Turkish intelligence services believe that almost every such incident is either the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, or directly the FSB of the Russian Federation.

The unsuccessful assassination attempt in 2011 on Shamsudin Batukaev, a former Sharia judge of Ichkeria, led to the discovery of a group of killers. Detained by the guards of the judge Bahram Batumaev, he testified, and as a result, Ali Dabuev, nicknamed Zona (also known as Temur Makhauri and Ruslan Papaskiri), who was an agent of both Russian and Georgian special services. The accomplices of the Zone were certain Alexander Zharkov and Nadim Ayupov. Both escaped without arrest.

The April arrest in Istanbul means the opening of the second group of liquidators operating in Turkey. But today, such operations are superimposed on a completely different foreign policy background. Ankara, for example, did not even consider it necessary to notify Moscow of the nature of the charges brought against the two detainees, which is not surprising, given the current relationship between the two countries. Excessive enthusiasm of our special services for special operations abroad can lead to the most unexpected consequences.