On Tuesday, federal investigators said that Andrei Chernyshev, who heads Khimki’s department on public property and privatization, was arrested under suspicion of organizing Fetisov’s attack. Criminal investigators also detained 25-year-old Vyacheslav Kovalev and 28-year-old Andrei Kashirin, who are suspected of having carried out the attack.

Earlier in the day, RIA Novosti reported that a total of four figures had been detained in connection with Fetisov’s beating. The day before, reports surfaced that police had conducted searches in Khimki administrative buildings. While the Investigative Committee confirmed this information, the Khimki administration itself denied that any searches had occurred.

Konstantin Fetisov, leader of the Khimki branch of the Right Cause party and a staunch supporter of the preservation of the Khimki Forest, was attacked by unknown assailants on November 4. Repeated blows to the head from a baseball bat caused him to fall into a coma. On December 27, his wife, Marina Fetisova, reported that his condition was improving; Fetisov is now in “a state of deep stupor,” meaning he is not in a coma but basically does not respond to external stimuli.

The activists and ecologists who fought with Fetisov to preserve the Khimki Forest say the attack was clearly connected to his civic activities. Days after the attack, journalist Oleg Kashin, who had dedicated a significant amount of coverage to the Khimki Forest controversy, was also beaten nearly to death by two unknown men. An investigation is still ongoing.

Anatoly Yurov, 62, was admitted to a hospital in the city of Khimki on December 1. His friend, Igor Belousov, spoke to Interfax about his death. “Today Anatoly’s driver called me and said that he died at six in the morning in one of the sections of the Khimki hospital,” he said.

While doctors said the editor died of cancer, Belousov feels that Yurov’s death “was, in any case, a result of his opposition of the city administration.”

“He was under constant stress. He was beaten several times; during one attack he sustained several knife wounds,” said Belousov. “These incidents can’t not be connected with Anatoly’s strict position, which was periodically critical of the head of Khimki and his subordinates,” said Belousov.

The future of Yurov’s newspaper, Grazhdanskoe Soglasie, is now unclear. It became Khimki’s last opposition newspaper after Khimkinskaya Pravda Editor-in-Chief Mikhail Beketov was attacked and permanently disabled in 2008.

Beketov was actively critical of the Khimki administration. In particular, he voiced strong opposition to the construction of a highway between Moscow and St. Petersburg that would cut through the Khimki Forest. The investigation of his attack remains unsolved.

The suit against Khimkinskaya Pravda Editor-in-Chief Mikhail Beketov was filed by Khimki Mayor Vladimir Strelchenko. Strelchenko’s name has reappeared in the news over the past few days as a possible suspect in Kashin’s assault. He had sued Beketov for slander following an interview on REN-TV, in which the journalist accused the mayor of setting his car on fire.

“I see it as political terror, where Strelchenko came out and ordered the attack,” Beketov said at the time.

As the New York Times points out, the journalist had been a longtime critic of the Khimki city administration, including in regards to controversial construction plans for a highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg that would have cut down a large swath of the Khimki Forest. Days after calling for the resignation of the city’s leadership in Spring 2008, Beketov’s car was blown up. Then, that November, the journalist was beaten by unknown attackers and permanently disabled. No arrests have been made in either case.

On Wednesday, a judge in the Khimki Magistrate Court convicted Beketov of slander against Strelchenko and sentenced him to a fine of about $170.

“Beketov was sentenced to a fine of five thousand rubles,” the journalist’s lawyer, Andrei Stoblunov, told Kasparov.ru. “Considering that the statute of limitations is up, he won’t be paying the fine.”

Still, Stoblunov said he plans to appeal the decision on the basis that the article of Russia’s criminal code used to persecute Beketov is being used inappropriately by the authorities. “If article 129 is going to be used further against society, it will signal the death knell of the war against corruption,” he charged.

Wednesday’s sentencing was notable because it was the first out of three hearings where Mayor Strelchenko actually appeared in the courtroom. The court turned down his charges on two previous occasions when the mayor simply did not show up. According to several media sources, Strelchenko had urged Beketov to settle the case.

For his part, Beketov appeared at each of the court hearings, despite his disability – the journalist was forced to rent a special truck and hire emergency medical personnel to attend each session.

Attacks on journalists are far from rare in Russia, and so is impunity. While suspects often abound, 94% of murder cases have never been resolved. Writing for Yezhednevny Zhurnal, noted journalist Yulia Latynina lays out the most likely perpetrators of Kashin’s brutal attack.

Kashin – Who Ordered the Attack?
By Yulia Latynina
November 8, 2010
Yezhednevny Zhurnal

The attack on Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin is notable for the fact that, like in an Agatha Christie novel, its circle of suspects is finite and small.

The first suspect is Khimki Mayor and Afghan war veteran Strelchenko. The same thing happens to all of Strelchenko’s opponents – their skulls get broken. Exactly two years ago, they broke the skull of Mikhail Beketov; on the anniversary of Beketov’s beating, they broke the skull of Khimki Right Cause leader Fetisov, and a day later – Oleg Kashin.

What do we have here in Khimki, Chechnya? Who is Mayor Strelchenko – Ramzan Kadyrov?

The second suspect is the manager of the Federal Agency for Youth Matters, a close associate of Surkov, the spiritual leader of the Putinjugend – Vasily Yakemenko.

In August 2010, Kashin uncovered and expanded upon an unappetizing story about Yakemenko.

A young girl attending Seliger, Anastasia Korchevskaya, decided to promote herself by bragging about her proximity to the top command, and posted a photo of herself with Yakemenko online with the caption: “Seliger 2008. Yakemenko still thinks I’m madly in love with him.” Yakemenko commented in response: “Korchevskaya, if you came to me two times at night in my tent, it doesn’t mean I think you’re in love with me.”

The page was then deleted, but Kashin managed to make a screenshot and generally did everything possible to expand upon the story. It turned out that Yakemenko not only uses his authority to sleep with schoolchildren, but he also brags on LiveJournal that he screws them in tents. Kashin is not a simple person; he has cooperated with the Kremlin on multiple occasions (it is only worth nothing how he insisted that Private Sychev’s legs fell off on their own accord), and his position could be seen not just as the position of an enemy, but worse – the position of a traitor.

To declare Kashin to be an enemy of the people as a result of this issue was awkward. In the pedofuhrer’s place, it was worth it to wait and latch onto some other one of Kashin’s writings. And, for sure, when Kashin did an interview for Kommersant with the head of the antifascists who were rampaging against the Khimki administration, the Young Guard website, which is under Yakemenko’s jurisdiction, came out with an article entitled “Journalist-traitors (my emphasis – Y.L.) must be punished!”

In the interview with Anonymous (an unprecedented step that Kommersant went ahead with the publication of an anonymous interview, but that’s just it – Anonymous’s name is well known), Khimki is called “absolute evil,” and Strelchenko – “a bandit from the 90s.” But the most important thing is that Anonymous marked the beginning of “a new level of social evolution in our country.” The very existence of these kinds of youth movements, capable of instantaneous organization, self-sacrifice, and going to prison, and the enthusiasm with which the anarchists were greeted by Khimki residents who happened along their path, was a threat to the status and the money that people who love to screwing schoolchildren in Seliger are accustomed to.

And this came through very clearly in the Young Guard article. The article ended like this: “We cannot be under the thumb of information extremists. They are enemies, and that means they will be punished.”

Punished – how? Here is just a shortened list of beatings whose authors have never been found. The epidemic of beatings of Polish diplomats, the beating of Marina Litvinovich (“You need to be more careful, Marina!” she was told by one of the men who was standing nearby when she woke up), the beating of Lev Ponomarev. The murder of antifascists; the investigation of their connections with the Kremlin needs to look at the organizations Russian Verdict and Russian Image, which were joined by Nikita Tikhomirov and Yevgeniya Khasis – the presumed murderers of Markelov and Baburova.

Finally, we mustn’t fail to mention the third candidate. Oleg Kashin is extremely well known as the creator of the expression “sh!tty Turchak,” referring to the governor of Pskovskaya Oblast, former coordinator of youth policy for United Russia, Seliger guest and son of Putin’s friend – Andrei Turchak.

The writing on Kashin’s blog, however, was not about Turchak, but about Kaliningrad Governor Boos: “Compare him with any governor, not even with Ramzan and not with Tuleyev, with any sh!tty Turchak – is this Boos uncompromising?” – wrote Kashin.

If you think about the tone used on the Internet, the remark can be seen almost as innocent: but the son of Putin’s friend suddenly personally demanded that Kashin “apologize within 24 hours,” and then even took the time to call a press conference, where he called Kashin’s retort “informational trash.” “Now I know what kind of person this is, he is not a journalist as I understand it.”

I mention Andrei Turchak, by the way, for the completeness of the list: since, although the epithet “sh!tty Turchak” is now stuck with the former coordinator of youth policy for United Russia, this whole story looks more like a routine dirty internet fight than anything else. As opposed to the stories of Strelchenko and Yakemenko.

And so, like in an Agatha Christie novel, the list of suspects has been defined, and there is no chance that the crime was committed by the yardkeeper on the side. Interrogations on this case need to be carried out on Khimki Mayor Strelchenko, youth movement leader Vasily Yakemenko, and Governor Andrei Turchak. In the best case scenario, there will be talk about a semi-independent initiative by some kind of fascist organizations who were upset about the interview with Anonymous. But it’s most likely that one of these two, and not three – either Strelchenko or Yakemenko – decided that he would get away with everything. And let’s note: all of this is connected to Khimki in one way or another.

And another thing. Yes, I understand that there is more than one suspect. But, in my view, it is stupid to walk around with signs saying “find the criminals” and “take measures,” refraining from naming the suspects. If you guys are going to ask them to “find the criminals,” then they’re going to respond “we’re looking.” Gelman deserves honor and praise for writing that he thinks Yakemenko is behind the attack.

Translation by theotherrussia.org

“He died after a brutal attack which took place during the weekend,” said Alla Chernysheva, an activist  leader in a local environmental movement.  According to Chernysheva, Protazanov was attacked from behind and hit in the head, knocked to the ground, and kicked repeatedly.  Protazanov, who is disabled, was then hospitalized and released the next day.

Anatoly Yurov, the editor of Grazhdanskoe Soglasie, said Protazanov worked there as a layout designer and reporter, and had called him from the hospital after his attack.  “On Sunday during the day, a stranger called Protazanov’s wife and told her that her husband was lying in an entranceway on Yubileynaya ulitsa,” Yurov said.  “His relatives came to get him and saw that he had been beaten, was covered in blood and bruises.  An ambulance took him to the hospital, he was given a shot and released.”  On Monday, Yurov said he called Protazanov in the afternoon and offered to drive him to the hospital.  The designer admitted he was feeling ill, but said he wanted to rest at home.  He died within three hours.

Law enforcement investigators, meanwhile, asserted that Protazanov had died as result of alcohol poisoning or a possible overdose on painkillers.  “Protazanov’s body was found on Monday, March 30th without any trace of a violent death, by his wife and parents,” the Moscow police press-service said.  “A forensic medical investigation has not yet been completed, but the preliminary cause of death is deemed poisoning.”

Police added that they found pain medication in Protazanov’s apartment, and asserted that he had started drinking heavily a week before his death.  Relatives and colleagues disputed the claims, explaining that Protazanov took medication as result of a long history of headaches.

“The theory of poisoning is complete rubbish,” Yurov told the BBC. “It was murder. If a person is beaten up in such a way that he died then it is murder.”  The editor said he suspected that Protazanov was not robbed, and was attacked for his work.  Yurov said the designer was working on an issue with a story on electoral falsifications in the northern Moscow suburb.

According to the ITAR-TASS news agency, a police spokesman said that bruises found on Protazanov’s face and head had nothing to do with his death.

Protazanov is not the first person involved in opposition politics to be attacked in Khimki.  Mikhail Beketov, the editor-in-chief of the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper, remains in a coma after he was jumped on November 13th.

According to Yurov, a total of six journalists have been violently assaulted in Khimki in the last two years.

The local electoral commission claims that some of the people who donated to Chirikova’s campaign did not include their full passport information and citizenship in the official forms.  The candidate maintains that all the information was correctly written.

In an interview with the Russian News Service, Chirikova said the Khimki administration was simply trying to prevent an independent candidate from running in the election.

Oleg Mitov one of Russia’s best know environmentalists and the deputy head of Russia’s environmental protection agency, said the reasons given for Chirikova’s removal were “ludicrous and contrived.”

Chirikova pledged to appeal the decision in court.  She is also starting to worry about her security, and has turned to police and asked for their protection.  According to Chirikova, she started receiving death threats after attorney Stanislav Markelov was killed.  The attorney, who was a prominent human rights defender and had worked with Khimki environmentalists, was gunned down in central Moscow on January 19th.

Other activists who spoke out against city officials in Khimki have also been threatened and attacked.  Mikhail Beketov, the editor-in-chief of the Khimkinskaya Pravda newspaper, was attacked and brutally beaten on November 14th. Beketov was a staunch opponent of a proposed Moscow-St. Petersburg superhighway, which would have destroyed a pristine stretch of recreational forest in Khimki.  Beketov had worked closely with Chirikova and remains in critical condition.