When the Kremlin starts throwing bombs, be sure to look the other way

Ivan Safronov died March 2nd from a four-story fall from his apartment window. Tuesday (September 12) Moscow’s Central District Prosecutor’s office ruled his death a suicide and closed the investigation. Ivan Safronov was a journalist, adding to the long list of dead Russian journalists.

But Ivan Safronov was not, however, a small-time writer known mostly for digging up the antics of Russian officials. He was Kommersant’s defense and military correspondent with credentials as a former Russian Space Agency colonel.

Kommersant editors and journalists politely declined comment for the record but articles reporting official statements have taken an increasingly skeptical tone. Indeed, several Russian media outlets have cast their eyes warily at official investigations and dubious findings of their colleagues’ untimely demise.

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When a Tartarstan court sentenced seven gang members to stiff sentences for the 2000 murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Igor Domnikov in late August – the first known prosecution of a journalists’ death ending in conviction – the newspaper vowed to continue its own investigation and urged prosecutors to bring the “masterminds” to justice.

But it was the “Keystone Kops” announcements in the official investigations of journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s murder that set Russian medias’ heads shaking. First, Prosecutor-General Yury Chaika announced ten arrests, without naming names. By the time names were revealed, charges were dropped. Then a suspect, Federal Security Service agent Pavel Ryaguzov, was re-arrested. Those charges, again, were dropped. But he was not released and subsequently charged again with passing information to the contract killers.

In the midst, the Moscow Prosecutor General’s office was functionally relieved of the case when a special Investigative Committee was formed September 7th.

On Saturday (September 15) Komsomolskaya pravda reported that Shamil Burayev had been detained two days earlier while driving through Moscow. RFE/RL later confirmed through an interview with Burayev's wife that Moscow's Basmanny District Court ordered Burayev arrested the next day (Friday) on suspicion of ordering Anna Politkovskaya's murder. Interfax reported (Friday) an unnamed Burayev family member saying "he could be released soon."

Burayev had been a district-level politician in Chechnya and ran for regional presidency in 2003. He lost but continued to irritate current Chechnan president Ramzan Kadyrov, the thuggish former boxer who succeeded his father, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in 2004. Much of Anna Politkovskaya's reporting centered on the younger Mr. Kadyrov's brutal tactics in the region.

"What we have here is a PR campaign aimed at hindering the investigation," said Novaya gazeta deputy editor Sergei Sokolov to RFE/RL's Russian service describing the rather obvious leak of information to Komsomolskaya pravda.

Certainly Kremlin officials have open communication with Russia’s official media, every bit as much as White House officials pass talking points to Fox News (and soon the Wall Street Journal newsroom). Both countries have election cycles looming large and media management is part of the power cycle. While US President Bush plans on a quiet retirement to his Texas ranch, his political party is fighting for its life. Russian President Putin plans no similar retirement.

Much of Western media was flustered by Mr. Putin’s appointment of Viktor Zubkov to replace Mikhail Fradkov as Prime Minister. But Russia is and always has been a chess game. Speculation now turns to the political futures of hard-line Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov and Gazprom Chairman Dmitry Medvedev thought, until this week, to be the primary candidates for the Russian presidency when Mr Putin steps down next year. Mr. Medvedev is considered the Kremlin’s media mind, likened to Karl Rove in the Bush administration. Mr. Zubkov, known as an anti-corruption fighter, told the Russian media this week that he just might run for the top job, though he told ITAR-TASS (September 13) that he would not join a political party.

Russia watchers are always perplexed by their inability to find consistency. Russia’s military tested a ‘super bomb’ Wednesday, bringing out all the old Cold War headlines. Unfortunately, Ivan Safronov was not able to file a report.

When the Kremlin starts throwing bombs, be sure to look the other way

It was a great week for Russia watchers. Moscow prosecutors ruled the suspicious death of a military journalist a suicide. President Putin named a little known pal Prime Minister. And then they dropped a big bomb.