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Persoverzicht Tsjetsjenië - september 2011

1 september 2011

“Respected killer” for Budanov: The Presnensky Court in Moscow has arrested a suspect in connection with the murder of Colonel Yury Budanov. According to the files received by the court, Chechen national Magomed Suleimanov was spying on Budanov, and then killed him by firing several shots. According to the media reports, the suspect is not an ordinary person but is a known religious activist and a “fixer”, a person who can help to solve different problems and makes arrangements for other people. (Interfax, Kommersant)

5 september 2011

Politkovskaya suspect names murder organizer: Key witness-turned-suspect in the 2006 killing of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskayahas struck a plea bargain with investigators and identified Chechen businessman Lom-Ali Gaitukayev as the murder's organizer. Gaitukayev already had a criminal record and is currently serving a 15-year jail term on unrelated charges of staging a murder attempt in Ukraine. (Kommersant)

8 september 2011

Manezhnaya square riots case: (i) Moscow's Tverskoy district court yesterday started considering the case of ethnically motivated riots on Moscow's Manezhnaya square in December 2010. Three out of the five defendants are activists of the unregistered Other Russia party, including Belarusian national Igor Berezyuk. The defendants have been charged with inciting mass unrest, hooliganism and violence against a government official. Berezyuk has also been charged with inciting hatred during the rioting. The riots were provoked by the investigators' handling of the murder case of Spartak Moscow football fan Yegor Sviridov, who was killed in a brawl with natives of the Northern Caucasus. (ii) According to a poll by the Levada-Centre, provided by Novye Izvestia, 46% of Russians said they feel enmity towards people of other ethnicities (compared to 38% in 2005). (Izvestia, Kommersant, MN, Novye Izvestia, RBK daily, RG)

12 september 2011

Envoy criticises Chechnya's Kadyrov over lack of freedom: Presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District Alexander Khloponin is quoted as saying at a meeting with foreign journalists last week that young people in Chechnya want more freedom than allowed by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. The media report that Khloponin dismissed allegations by some human rights activists that Kadyrov had been involved in organising killings of opponents in Russia and abroad. (MT, Russia Today)

13 september 2011

Separatist website qualified as extremist: A Moscow district court has qualified as extremist the Kavkaz Center website, the Prosecutor General's Office said on Monday. The press recalls that the Kavkaz-Center website was established in 1999 in Grozny by one of Chechen separatist leaders, Movladi Udugov. (Kommersant, Lenta.ru, Novye Izvestia RIAN)

14 september 2011

Zhirinovsky calls on ethnic Russians to vote for LDPR: At a congress of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) yesterday in Moscow, LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky put forward the party's election slogan "For the Russians!" and called on ethnic Russians to vote for him. He expressed hope that the LDPR could gain 25% of the vote in the 4 December Duma elections. Experts, contacted by RBK daily, suggest that the LDPR could get up to 20% of the vote against the background of growing nationalist sentiment in Russia. Zhirinovsky heads the party's list of candidates. Second on the federal list is head of the Duma's CIS Affairs Committee, Alexei Ostrovsky, followed by Zhirinovsky's son Igor Lebedev. Regional lists include the names of Valery Budanov, son of former army colonel Yury Budanov who had been convicted of murdering a young Chechen woman and was killed in June in Moscow, and Maxim Korotkov-Gulyayev, a lawyer in the high-profile case of nationalists Tikhonov and Khasis. Duma member Andrey Lugovoi, the main suspect in the murder of former Russian security officer Litvinenko in Britain, has been included in the LDPR's Irkutsk regional list of candidates. (Izvestia, Kommersant, MT, NG, RBK daily, RG, Vedomosti)

Attempt on the life of imam prevented in Chechnya: An attempt on the life of the imam of a local mosque was prevented in the Chechen town of Argun on Tuesday after a bomb was found under a car belonging to the imam. (Kommersant, RG)

15 september 2011

Putin meets People's Front activists: (i) At yesterday's meeting with participants of the primaries of United Russia and the All-Russia People's Front, Prime Minister and United Russia leader Vladimir Putin confirmed plans to overhaul the United Russia faction after the Duma elections on 4 December. (ii) Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has gained 100% of the vote during the United Russia primaries in Chechnya. (Izvestia, Kommersant, MT, NG, RG, Vedomosti)

16 september 2011

Russian-French joint venture to build ski resorts in the North Caucasus: At an economic forum in Sochi today, Russia's JSC 'Resorts of the North Caucasus' and France's Caisse des Depots and France-Caucase should sign agreements on the establishment of a joint venture to build 5 ski resorts in the North Caucasus. Other 20 companies have also agreed to participate in the project. The French firms undertookto attract 10 billion Euros in the project during the year if Russia during this time fulfills its promises to provide tax relief for the project and state guarantees of investment return in the event of force majeure. (Vedomosti, Kommersant)

21 september 2011

How much for federal budget are Medvedev's and Putin's initiatives?:Ahead of the consideration of the draft federal budget for 2012—2014 by the Government today, Vedomosti compares the budgetary funds allocated to implement President Medvedev's initiatives during the next 3 years with those allocated to implement PM Putin's initiatives. Medvedev leads with RUR2.5 trillion versus Putin's RUR1.1 trillion. The newspaper recalls Medvedev's most costly initiatives — the reforms of the Russian Army and of the Interior Ministry, as well as falling budgetary revenues due to the lower social security tax. Putin's initiatives are more modest, e.g. the additional indexation of salaries in the public sector, modernization of education, preparations for the APEC summit, and the increase in spending on the economic development in Chechnya. (Vedomosti)

23 september 2011

Twin blasts in Makhachkala; senior prison official, relatives killed in Dagestan: (i) The media report on further deterioration of the security situation in Dagestan. One police officer was killed and more than 60 other people, including more than 40 policemen, were wounded in twin blasts in Makhachkala early on Thursday. Kommersant does not rule out that the explosions may have been organised by leader of Dagestan militants Ibragimkhalil Daudov. The daily recalls that Daudov's wife, who had been preparing a terrorist attack in Moscow, died in an accidental explosion on 31 December 2010 at a Moscow sports club. A militant was killed in an operation in a Dagestani village against militants suspected of involvement in the Makhachkala blasts. According to Vedomosti, an Interior Troops serviceman was arrested on suspicion of selling explosives to militants. (ii) Deputy head of the Federal Penitentiary Service's office in Dagestan, Magomed Murtuzaliyev, his daughter, nephew and driver were killed in an attack on Friday morning in Makhachkala. In a separate incident on Thursday in Dagestan, head of the Buinaksk district police department Adilkhanov survived an attack, but two of his bodyguards were killed. (iii) The main military prosecutor's office has revealed that more than RUR113 million allocated for servicemen who participated in counterterrorism operations in the Northern Caucasus had been embezzled in the past two years by accounting officials of the combined forces in Chechnya. (iv) Police yesterday evacuated passengers over a suspicious car parked near Moscow's Yaroslavsky railway station. No explosives have been found in the car. (v) The Moscow Times reports with reference to Turkish media that a suspect in the murders of three former Chechen militants in Istanbul last week entered Turkey on a Russian passport under the name of Alexander Zharkov. The incident, the paper notes, "sparked speculation that the Russian Government might have been involved." (Gazeta.ru, Interfax, Izvestia, Kommersant, MN, MT, NG, RG, Vedomosti; Ekho Moskvy)

29 september 2011

Nationalists launch 'Stop feeding the Caucasus!' campaign: Dailies report on a campaign launched by Russian nationalists under the slogan 'Stop feeding the Caucasus!" to protest against the budgetary spending in the Northern Caucasus. (Kommersant, MN)

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