Update 11/11/10: Fuller context added to Pleshcheyeva’s remarks.

Members of Russian law enforcement, mass media, government agencies, advocacy groups, and pro-Kremlin youth organizations spoke yesterday during a Public Chamber session dedicated to the ghastly beating of Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin. While most presentations denounced the attack and focused on the need to step up efforts to prosecute assailants of Russian journalists, one speaker accused the journalists of bringing these attacks on themselves.

According to the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, passions ran high during the two-hour session, with journalists, lawyers, and activists decrying Russia’s chronic failure to solve cases of attacks on journalists. Editor-in-Chief Yevgeniya Albats of the New Times magazine spoke directly to representatives of law enforcement present in the auditorium, saying that the government has provided vast amounts of support to large organizations that have long been hounding Kashin and numerous other journalists.

The editor was referring to government-sponsored pro-Kremlin youth movements that routinely harass journalists whose views contradict their own, some of whose representatives were present at the session. Nashi Commissar Irina Pleshcheyeva turned out to be an actual member of the Public Chamber, and issued a sharp rebuke against those who she felt practice “political terrorism.” Noting that she did not consider Kashin to be a talented journalist, the commissar argued that the journalists themselves are responsible for such attacks:

When a journalist is attacked or murdered per order, when he’s dealing with some case, then journalists take it, come together, and continue the case. They don’t need to provide reasons to murder them. Not everyone is going to be killed. If a person – the people who commit crimes – they don’t think they’re going to be caught. None of the criminals think they’re going to be caught. But if their goal is to change the situation – so that a person doesn’t write, doesn’t investigate – he should know that, in the future, the journalists are going to take the case and continue it. The editorial staff will take it. All the journalists will take it. I don’t know. But that investigation will continue. Then there won’t be any necessity to explain to people that fists don’t solve anything.

Pleshcheyeva went on to say that she herself feared being attacked for what she wrote on blogs and other Internet media, and that this is a problem shared by Russian society on the whole. Moreover, she argued, lots of people get killed in Russia while fulfilling their professional duties – soldiers, businessmen, teachers, doctors – so journalists are no exception. While the commissar briefly touched upon the importance of investigating such attacks, she stressed that society has to focus on the fact that “they don’t let us speak,” and not “that somebody got crippled.”

The speech was disturbingly reminiscent of remarks by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in August that opposition protesters intentionally provoke the police into “bludgeoning them upside the head.”

Also present at the session was Andrei Tatarinov, a leading member of the pro-Kremlin youth group Young Guard and member of the Public Chamber. He supported Pleshcheyeva and added that while his organization has not always been on great terms with Kashin, its website has posted condolences and denounced the attack. He did not explain, however, why this page was accompanied by what Nezavisimaya Gazeta described as “staged photographs mocking people expressing sympathy.”

A presentation by Moscow’s chief investigator, Vadim Yakovenko, provided an abrupt summary of Kashin’s case: the work is ongoing; 30 witnesses have been questioned; there is a wealth of information.

Vladimir Vasiliev, head of the State Duma Committee on Safety, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the auditorium was clearly unsatisfied with Yakovenko’s laconic speech. Therefore, Vasiliev spoke about the lack of sufficient budgetary funds for the needs of Russia’s law enforcement system, which results in complex cases being doled out to “boys” to solve. According to the newspaper, Vasiliev’s remarks were taken as evidence that we shouldn’t count on seeing any results from the investigation in the foreseeable future.

After undergoing two operations on his skull and a partial amputation of one of his pinky fingers, Oleg Kashin awoke from a coma Wednesday morning in a Moscow hospital. Doctors say his condition is critical but stable, and that he should be able to talk in the coming days. Colleagues and supporters continued calling for his perpetrators to be found and brought to justice for the fifth day in a row.

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

Representatives of the movement justified the necessity of the restructuring. They noted that many of its leaders have recently moved on to other work in the government, including the State Duma, the Federation Council, municipal administrations, and the Committee for Youth Affairs created under the presidential administration.

At the same time, political analysts connected the coming changes with fading interest from the Kremlin. They cited a waning need for the group’s mammoth street demonstrations, which were intended to combat the opposition. “Russia’s streets are already under our control,” Ivan Demidov, the head of the movement’s Coordination Council, told Kommersant in an interview. “Now, more sensible behavior is required. Before, we were presenting ourselves, and now we’ll take to creating.”

“The street won’t empty, but protests against political opponents won’t be needed any more,” Demidov added.

Less than a month ago, news surfaced of a structural reorganization at Nashi, another pro-Kremlin youth group. Nashi will soon close the majority of its regional offices, decentralize leadership, and change the scope of its activities. As with the Young Guard, political analysts attributed the group’s new format with the wish of authorities to move away from street demonstrations, which have led to scandal and embarrassment on numerous occasions.

Radov, the group’s top campaign manager, was loudly critical of the group:

“It’s sad when something that you have put your hands, heart, time and talent into turns into an ugly monster. Today, the Young Guard ideology is populism… and that’s not my ideology. Instead of democratic values, [they are] promulgating and establishing authoritarian values which I cannot be close with.”

Radov wrote that he was tired “of the greed, lack of integrity and the all-consuming ideology of party members and bureaucrats, who no one will ever change. The elections have decisively turned into a farce, a parody of the citizens’ expression of their free will.”

“The practice of political repression is continuing in the country,” the youth leader continued. “The pro-Kremlin parties and movements operate under conditions of rigged political competition, [or] more accurately, they altogether don’t experience any competition and don’t plan on ever experiencing it.”

Radov also noted that many Young Guard activists were fed up with the organization. He told Kommersant that promises have not been kept to the volunteers. “They promised us a lot in regard to the elections, and people haven’t even been given the chance to become aides to deputies.”

The former “younguardsman” called on all other members of the organization to follow in his example and “quit the ranks of the Young Guard and engage in something publicly or at least personally useful and meaningful.”

Andrei Tatarinov, another Young Guard leader, told the Moscow Times that Radov’s accusations were “unfounded.” Dismissing the importance of Radov’s work in the organization, Tatarinov commented that the former activist was previously “displeased with his low salary.”