I want to live. So I write this text

Journalist Elena Kostyuchenko tells how she, apparently, tried to poison her in Germany

Elena Kostyuchenko is one of the best Russian journalists. In the first weeks of invasion, she was in Ukraine and wrote several texts for Novaya Gazeta, which became important evidence of war and crimes committed by the Russian military in a neighboring country. At the end of March 2022, the “new” suspended its work due to the threat of criminal prosecution, the publication deleted the texts of the journalist (but they can be read on Medusa). Since then, not a single report of Kostyuchenko has come out. Soon after she moved to Germany, she began serious health problems. Apparently, they tried to poison her (more about this - in the investigation of The Insider). Medusa publishes Elena Kostyuchenko’s story about what happened to her after the spring of 2022.

You Can Read this Story in English .

There is a mat in this text. If this is unacceptable for you, please do not read it.

For a long time I did not want to write this text. I am vile, scary, ashamed.

I can’t write everything that I know, because I have to protect those who saved my life.

On February 24, 2022, my country attacked Ukraine. On February 24, I went to Ukraine on the instructions of Novaya Gazeta, where I have been working for the past 17 years.

I crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border on the night of February 26. For four weeks, thanks to the incredible help of Ukrainians, I was able to make four reports - from the border , from Odessa , from Nikolaev and Kherson .

Kherson was under occupation. To get there and leave there, I crossed the front line twice. In Kherson, the Russian military abducted and tortured people. I was able to find those who went through torture. Comparing their stories, working on the ground, I found the place where the abducted people were held - the former building of the pre -trial detention center at 3 heating equipment, I also managed to get the names and circumstances of the abduction of 44 people. I published the text. I transmitted information about the stolen to the prosecutor's office of Ukraine.

The next city, where I was driving, was Mariupol .

Mariupol still resisted. Fights were going on. Humanitarian corridors have not been for many days. The only sometimes passable road lay through Zaporozhye. She regularly fired at, and closer to Mariupol, Russian checkpoints began. But almost daily people were driving along this road to try to save their relatives from the destroyed city. Volunteers organized them in columns. I decided that I would go with them.

On March 28, I entered Zaporozhye. While standing on a checkpoint (Terborne fighters took my passport and accreditation for verification), messages from friends began to come to me. "Bastards", "Hold on", "Tell me, if you need help." So I found out that the New Gazeta ceased its work. "New" received the second warning from Roskomnadzor in the year, this threatened to review the license. I was waiting for this, I was waiting for the invasion, but I did not know that it would be so painful.

I decided that I would go to Mariupol anyway. I am publishing a text where I can.

On March 29, I met with volunteers and those who were going to go to Mariupol to save their loved ones. I found a man who agreed to take me to his car, despite my Russian passport. We agreed that we were leaving the 31st.

March 30, day before the trip, I spent in the hotel. I tried to gain strength. A colleague from the "New" called me. She asked if I was going to Mariupol. I was surprised: only two people knew about the fact that I was going to the editorial office - my editor -in -chief Dmitry Muratov and my editor Olga Bobrova. I said: "Yes, I'm going tomorrow." She said: “My sources contacted me. They know that you are going to Mariupol. They say that the Kadyrovites have an order to find you. ”

The Kadyrovites - the Chechen divisions of the Russian Guard - actively participated in the battles for Mariupol, stood on checkpoints. I knew that. The colleague said: “They will not detain you, they will kill you. This is agreed. ”

It seems to be crashed into the wall. He laid his ears, everything became white. I said, "I do not believe." She said: “I told them too that I did not believe. And they turned on me an audio recording where you are talking to a person about Mariupol, discussing a trip. I recognized your voice. "

She hung up the phone, I sat on the bed. I didn't think anything, I just sat.

After 40 minutes, my source from the military intelligence of Ukraine called me. He said: “We have information that the murder of the journalist of Novaya Gazeta is being prepared in Ukraine. Orientation on you at every Russian checkpoint. ”

An hour later, Muratov called me. He said: “You can no longer go to Mariupol. You have to leave Ukraine right now. ”

But I could not force myself to leave.

The next morning, I woke up from the post of the editor from the New. The Prosecutor General’s Office and Roskomnadzor sent to the editorial office a demand to delete my reports from Ukraine from the site - otherwise the site will be blocked entirely. "New" obeyed. For some reason, it finally crushed me. I cried and could not stop. Then, instead of tears, rage came, she filled me whole.

Then I tried to find a new way to Mariupol, bypassing Russian checkpoints. But this path did not exist, there were fights everywhere. The only road was expensive through Zaporozhye, and on this road they were waiting for me.

I could not admit my powerlessness. Rational arguments did not act. The only thought stopped me: what will happen to the person who agrees to take me into his car? If they kill me, they will not spare him.

On the night of April 2, I left Ukraine.

I left in very poor condition. Lice, pig, ptp . My friends sheltered me, handed me out of hand. My girlfriend Yana arrived, took care of me, made sure that I would eat and sleep. I was going to recover, finish the work on the book that I wrote, and return home to Russia. All my work, my whole life, my mother and sister - there. The worse the news from the homeland became, the more I felt that my place was there.

I thought that they were going to kill me. But the longer I thought, the calmer my thoughts were. Now I am funny and ashamed to remember what was in my head. I did not know who gave the order, I called the killers the word "they."

I thought: probably it was an emotional solution. The war does not go at all the way they want, everything on the platoon. And I just returned from Kherson, drove under their nose - of course, they were upset. They began to find out what I was doing, found out that I was going to Mariupol, which is all a whole military crime, and tried to prevent it like this. There were several kilometers between the last Ukrainian and first Russian checkpoint, which no one controlled at all. The Russian military could say that I did not even reach them. People now and then disappear in the war. Who knows - suddenly the Ukrainian military killed me? I am a Russian journalist, and "Ukrainians hate Russians," everyone knows.

I thought: I was alive, and good.

In the evening of April 28, Muratov called me. He spoke very softly. He said: “I know you want to go home. You can’t return to Russia. They will kill you here. " I hung up the phone and began to scream. I stood on the street and screamed.

A month later we were able to meet. Muratov said: “It will look like a murder of hatred. The right hate lesbians, and you are a lesbian. ”

Then I wrote a book. I wrote and thought only about what I was writing. There was no place in my head for anything except the text, and these were the best days.

At the end of September, I contacted Muratov again. I asked him to find out if I could return to Russia. He called back a few days later: “No. No. No".

I found an apartment in Berlin and moved. On September 29, I went to work at Medusa. We decided that Iran would be my first business trip. I visited Iran and knew how to work there. I found people who will help me, made a visa, bought clothes. We decided that Ukraine will be the next business trip after Iran. Medusa asked me to submit documents for a Ukrainian visa before a trip to Iran.

* * *

The site on which it was possible to fill out the questionnaire and make an appointment with the embassy did not allow you to make either one or the other. On the hotline of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, they said that the site is under a hacker attack and until they cope with it, the recording is impossible. I began to look for contacts inside the embassy. I managed to agree that I would be accepted at the Munich consulate.

There is no excuse for this, but I must say that I corresponded about a trip to Munich in Facebook messenger. This messenger is not safe , I knew that. But I was not in Russia, I was in Germany. I did not even remember the basic safety rules that I had observed for years.

In the evening of October 17, I went to Munich. I was driving a long night train, in a common car. She took off, lay down on the seats, slept. People passed me, they touched my legs, I woke up, pulled my legs, slept on.

In the morning I arrived in Munich. I went to my friend, tried to sleep, then to the consulate. The employees asked me that I was going to do in Ukraine, they took my documents, but it did not work out to apply for a visa - the internal system also hung. We agreed that I would come again.

A friend took me near the consulate and we went to dinner. We ate in a restaurant, sat on the street. While we were sitting, her acquaintances - a man and two women approached the table twice. I thought: what Munich a small city, it turns out, everyone knows each other. I went to the toilet, returned. I thought only about the visa - a chance to get a little, but suddenly it will work out.

Then my friend took me to the station. When we drove up, she said: “You know, it smells bad from you. I will look for a deodorant. " The deodorant was not found. I remember that she was surprised at her words: she was a tactful person and would never say for anything if I really had not smelled disgusting.

On the train I found my place and immediately went to the toilet. I soaked the napkins and began to wipe myself. It turned out I was very sweating. The smell of sweat was sharp and strange: it smelled of rotten fruits.

I sat in my place and began to read the manuscript of the book. After some time, I realized that I was reading one paragraph again and again, I could not advance further. I listened to myself. The head hurt.

Three weeks before that I suffered a Covid. I thought: did I really get sick again.

I called Yana. She said: I feel bad. She said: I hope this is not a covid, otherwise I will go to Iran. I tried to return to the book, but I got worse. The headache intensified. I continued to sweat, went to the toilet again, again wiped myself with napkins.

* * *

When I went out at the station, I realized that I could not figure out how to get home. I knew that I had to go to the subway, but did not understand how. I thought to go out and call a taxi, but the very thought that it was necessary to navigate the map in the application, to compare real streets with it, and caused horror. I thought: this is a very difficult task, I can’t handle it.

For a long time I was looking for a transition to a platform with metro trains. She burst into tears on the platform: I did not understand which way to go. Other passengers helped me.

From the subway to the house, go five minutes. I went for a very long time. Every few steps I lowered my bag to the ground (it seemed unbearably heavy), rested.

I had shortness of breath on the stairs. I thought: how I twisted me, fucking Covid.

At home, I immediately went to bed. I was hoping that after sleep it would be better for me. But it got worse.

I woke up in abdominal pain. She was strange - very strong, but not harsh, it seemed to be turned on and turned off. I tried to sit down and lay back. The head was spinning so that the room seemed to rotate. Nausea increased with each rotation. I reached the toilet, there it was vomiting.

I continued to correspond with the Iranians. Cried. The first business trip to a new place - and such.

The stomach was sick more. It was painful to touch the skin. This night and the next few I almost did not sleep - as soon as a dream fell, the pain woke me up. My head continued to spin, as soon as I sat down or get up. On the third day, it became clear that I was not going on a business trip - and that this is not a Covid.

In Berlin, it is not easy to immediately get to the doctor. I was able to find myself at the doctor only after 10 days, on October 28.

It was an ordinary clinic in my area. Doctors - there were two of them - immediately said that these were the deferred consequences of Covid. “They last up to six months. If in six months it doesn’t get better, come again. ” We conducted an ultrasound - everything is normal, tapped on the stomach. I persuaded them to take blood. I got out of the clinic, reassured - apparently nothing to worry, it will soon become better.

A blood test came bad. The hepatic enzymes Alt and AST were five times higher than the norm. They took urine analysis. There was blood.

Doctors no longer joked. I was handed over to another specialist. She said: most likely, this is some of the viral hepatitis, probably brought from the war. Here we will find and start treating you.

Hepatitis analysis came negative.

The symptoms changed. The stomach was not so sick, the head spin less. There was no strength at all. The beginning began to swell. Then there was swelling on the fingers. I hardly took off the rings and could no longer put on. Fingers resembled sausages. The feet began to swell. The edema became more and more, the line of the chin disappeared, my face was not my face. The mirror needed me to recognize myself. Sometimes my heart began to knock - quickly, as if I were running. Sometimes the palms and feet began to burn - they became red, shiny.

I was tired of everything. It was difficult to go down the stairs. Sometimes we went out for a walk - for 15 minutes, for half an hour, then I tired so that it was necessary to return. I stopped sleeping - no longer in pain. As if the brain forgot how to fall asleep. I lay for hours, tried not to wake Jan, looked at the ceiling and thought: what's wrong with me.

The hepatic enzymes continued to grow. There was still blood in the urine.

I continued to walk around the doctors. They put forward versions, checked, put forward the following. Autoimmune diseases complicated pyelonephritis, systemic diseases. "Medusa" connected the doctor to whom she trusted. The doctor decided to repeat the tests for viral hepatitis (negatively). When I was driving home from the hospital, he wrote: "Is there a chance that you could be poisoned?" I replied: "No, I'm not so dangerous."

She told Yana, laughed. She says: well, yes, the simplest explanation. If the Russian journalist is so poisoned.

* * *

On December 12, I was again at the doctor in the clinic. The new round of analyzes, the indicators are worse, the ALT is exceeded seven times. We sat in her office. She was silent, sorted out the papers. She said: “Elena, there are two versions. The first is that the antidepressants that you accept could begin to work completely non -standard. But you recently changed pills, and the symptoms remain the same and blood indicators are the same. Therefore, the second version. Try not to worry. Perhaps you were poisoned. "

I laughed. The doctor was silent. I said: "This is impossible." The doctor said: “We excluded everything else. Sorry. You need to shit in toxicology. ”

The next three days I lay and thought. Now I don’t remember what. Yana says that on the first day I said that this is stupidity and the doctors were mistaken, they simply could not make the correct diagnosis and did not want to look further. Then I was silent. Then I contacted the "Medusa" and we began to think what to do.

To take tests for toxins, you need to contact the police.

And I turned to the police. I was sent from the site to the hospital. The police arrived there, interviewed me and doctors.

The first interrogation was in the criminal police of Berlin and lasted nine hours. The police were interested in everything - what I worked on, what I was going to work on, with whom I contacted in Ukraine, with whom I am in contact from my colleagues. On October 17 and 18, I had to recall in every time.

My apartment and things were checked for radiation. We checked for radiation and me. They took the things in which I was in Munich. The police checked my apartment for safety. The officer said: “Why do you live with open curtains? You can shoot you from the balcony from the house opposite. ”

The police said that I should follow the safety rules. Which? “Change the apartment. Walk different roads to the house. Do not order a taxi from the address to the address, leave the car per quarter. Walk on the street in sunglasses. ” " - And this is enough?" " - Well, it will increase your chances."

The police were angry at me. They did not show this, but after the third interrogation they talked. The senior investigator investigated the murder of the former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, who was shot in Tirgarten in 2019. The killer was caught quickly - thanks to witnesses and video cameras. The passport was in the name of Vadim Sokolov, but journalists and police found that his real name was Vadim Krasikov and that he was associated with the FSB. In Germany, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder "by order of the Russian government, being part of the Russian power apparatus." The judge called what happened "state terrorism." In 2022, Russia twice asked to include Krasikov in the list for exchange, but Germany refused.

A year earlier, the same investigator investigated the poisoning of the publisher of the Mediazone and Pussy Riot Pussy Riot, Peter Verzilov. He, in delirium and convulsions, was transported in “Sharyit” from Moscow on a private plane. Already in Berlin, Verzilov’s friends found surveillance behind the hospital. The police provided Verzilov defense and began his investigation. “And nothing could be installed. Even the substance could not be installed. ” "Why?" “Because it is impossible to ask the laboratory“ whether a person was poisoned ”. You can ask, “is there such a substance in the body”. And these substances are thousands. Therefore, this is such a popular way of murder. ”

“I don’t understand why you came to us so late.” You had to call the police at once, as you felt bad on the train. We would meet you at the station.

“But I did not think that this is poisoning.” I'm not sure now.

- Why didn't you think?

“I was wildly thinking like that.” And I'm in Europe.

- And what?

- I felt that I was safe.

- That's what you enrage us. You come and think that you are on vacation. What is like paradise here. No one even thinks that you need to beware. We have political killings. We have Russian special services. Your carelessness, yours and your colleagues, is prohibitive.

I did not inform me about the progress of the police investigation.

2 апреля на журналистской конференции ко мне подошел главный редактор The Insider Рома Доброхотов. Отвел в сторону. «Лена, у меня к тебе личный вопрос. Но я сначала кое-что тебе скажу. Мы с Христо Грозевым из Bellingcat сейчас расследуем серию отравлений в Европе. Пострадавшие — российские журналистки. Я хотел тебя спросить. То, что ты не пишешь столько времени, связано с твоим здоровьем?»

И я рассказала ему то, что сейчас рассказываю вам.

2 мая прокуратура Берлина прислала письмо, где сообщала, что дело, возбужденное по статье покушение на убийство, прекращено. Расследование не выявило «никаких указаний» на то, что меня пытались убить. «Имеющиеся показатели крови не дают четких указаний на отравление».

Врачи, консультирующие расследователей, сообщили, что наиболее вероятное объяснение того, что случилось со мной, — отравление хлорорганическим соединением. Я передала эту информацию полиции. 21 июля прокуратура открыла дело снова.

* * *

Что со мной сейчас? Боль, тошнота, отеки прошли. Силы не вернулись. Я ушла из штата «Медузы» — мне еще очень далеко до командировок.Сейчас я могу работать три часа в день. Это время увеличивается, но медленно. Бывают дни, когда я не могу делать ничего. Тогда я лежу и пытаюсь себя не ненавидеть.

Когда я писала этот текст, я пыталась восстановить хронологию, вспомнить все важные детали. Но какие детали важные? В ноябре в Берлин приехал мой друг. Он издатель, не активист, не журналист, не политик. Он пришел ко мне в гости и ужаснулся моему состоянию. Он сказал: ты понимаешь, что могла быть отравлена? Ты говорила об этом врачам? И я сказала: не говорила и не буду, потому что это глупости. Сказала: не надо заражать меня своей паранойей.

Я сказала полицейским неправду. Мне не было «дико думать такое». За то время, которое я работала в «Новой газете», у нас убили четверых сотрудников. Я хоронила химкинского журналиста Михаила Бекетова , он был моим другом. Я знала, что журналистов убивают. Я не хотела думать, что могут убить меня. От этих мыслей меня хранили отвращение, стыд и усталость. Мне было отвратительно думать о том, что есть люди, которые хотят моей смерти. Мне было стыдно говорить о таком. Даже с близкими стыдно, что там полиция. И я чувствовала, как устала, как у меня мало сил, что я не могу опять бежать.

Через несколько недель выйдет моя книга, в которой я рассказываю, как Россия приходила к фашизму. Книга выйдет на нескольких языках. Полицейские считают, что выход книги может стать триггером. Что люди, пытавшиеся меня убить в Украине и, возможно, пытавшиеся сделать это в Германии, попытаются снова.

Я хочу жить.

Therefore, I write this text.

Еще я хочу, чтобы мои коллеги, мои друзья, активисты и политические беженцы, которые сейчас находятся за рубежом, были осторожны. Были осторожнее меня. Мы не в безопасности и не будем в безопасности, пока в России не сменится политический режим. Наша работа приближает его конец, он защищает себя. Если вам внезапно стало плохо — пожалуйста, не отбрасывайте версию отравления, скажите о ней врачам. Боритесь за себя. Если это уже случилось с вами, пожалуйста, свяжитесь с расследователями The Insider. Они ищут тех, кто пытается нас убить.

Elena Kostyuchenko