Archive for August, 2007
The House of Cards Trembles
By Sean at 31 August, 2007, 9:23 am
It’s already falling like a house of cards. Two more suspects in the Politikovskaya murder were taken off the list today. Prosecutors announced that Oleg Alimov, one of the former Moscow police officers, has been freed from custody. Alimov and his three colleagues were suspected of working with former FSB officer Pavel Riaguzov, police Major [...]
Read More >>Lugovoi the Liar
By Sean at 30 August, 2007, 11:15 pm
With all the hoopla around the Anna Politkovskaya murder case, we’ve forgotten to check in with good ol’Andrei Lugovoi to see how he’s doing. Whether valid or not the Politikovskaya murder is often linked with the Litvinenko murder with the following terms–dissident, “fierce Kremlin critic,” Berezovsky, Chechnya, KGB/FSB, and, of course, Putin.
Unlike the Politkovskaya [...]
And Then There Were Nine . . .
By Sean at 30 August, 2007, 5:23 pm
Scratch two off the list of suspects in the Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. Yesterday, authorities released Alexei Berkin from police custody for lack of evidence. Prosecutors initially believed that Berkin was in league with the Chechen based Lasagna criminal gang (no really that’s what the article says ‘lasagna” Man, these guys really need to lay off [...]
Read More >>The Hubris of the Populist Race Card
By Sean at 30 August, 2007, 5:07 pm
Alexander Zaitchik and Mark Ames tackle the rise of skinhead violence in Russia in the latest issue of the Nation. As they point out, what was a trademark of Islamists–i.e. the beheading video–has now been adopted by Russian skins. In addition to the video, they note other signs of an escalation in skinhead [...]
Read More >>From the Komsomol Archive
By Sean at 29 August, 2007, 10:13 pm
I’m currently writing a chapter about expulsions in the Komsomol. The section I’m writing at the moment concerns denunciations. I thought I would share the following denunciation letter from 37 Komsomols from a cell in Chernishevsky school in Nizhny Novgorod in 1926.
To the Komsomol Bureau.
From the Nizhny Novhorod cell from the Chernishevsky School
[...]
Supposed Killers and a Just Plain Crook
By Sean at 29 August, 2007, 5:57 pm
More information is coming out about the individuals arrested for Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. Moskovskii komsomolets gives a run down of the suspects. The most high profile suspect is Pavel Riaguzov, 37, a former FSB lieutenant-colonel at the Moscow City Directorate. Riaguzov has been under FSB suspicion for some time for his alleged involvement [...]
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