On thursday afternoon, Adam Osmaev, a Chechen rebel who leads a unit in Ukraine fighting alongside government forces, was approached in Kiev by a man purporting to be a journalist with Le Monde. Osmayev was shot once in the abdomen and is in intensive care. His wife, member of a special task force of the Ukrainian National Police, returned fire. The attacker was hit with four bullets and has been apprehended.
After the second Chechen uprising, when Ramzan Kadyrov tightened his grip, many Chechens fled into exile in Europe and Turkey. One of those was General Isa Munaev, who had been grievously wounded. He was given sanctuary in Denmark, from where he continued to work for Chechen independence, although there was little hope of achieving much.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2014, the fledgling government was caught on the back foot and needed all the help it could get. Many Chechens flocked to Ukraine, including General Munaev, who was given command of a unit. There, they would soon be fighting against fellow Chechens, loyal to Kadyrov, who likewise streamed into the Donbass in aid of Mother Russia, and who, unlike the Chechen diaspora, appeared to be members of official Russian Defense Ministry units.
The war in eastern Ukraine, which broke out last spring, provided the exiled Chechens with their first chance in years to take up arms against Russia again. Munaev didn’t miss the opportunity. Weeks after Russia set off the conflict by invading and annexing the region of Crimea, Munaev arrived in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, with his suitcase of Chechen flags and patches.
Forty-eight years old at the time, he must have seemed a strange volunteer to the Ukrainian military officers who received him. But in their desperate search for experienced fighters – Ukraine’s armed forces were hopelessly unprepared for a war with Russia – Munaev was a valuable paramilitary asset. So Ukraine’s military provided him with a cache of small arms, and he was quickly allowed to form a unit called the Dudaev Battalion, which began serving alongside the Ukrainian army last spring. (The unit was named after the late Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudaev, a former Soviet air force general who ruled Chechnya during its years of de facto independence from 1991 until 1996, when he was killed in a Russian airstrike.)
Munaev was killed in action, almost exactly a year after the conflict had begun. Adam Osayev was made the leader of the Dudaev Battalion in his place. It was an interesting development for him, as just a couple of years previously, he had been in custody in Ukraine, accused by Russia of leading a conspiracy to assassinate the Russian Head of State. He had been captured in Odessa, weeks after another man he was linked to had been killed in an explosion, apparently the victim of a bomb the man had been preparing.
Adam Osmayev: the public schoolboy and a plot to kill Vladimir Putin
8 February 2013
Mr Osmayev has an unusual biography for an alleged Chechen terrorist. Son of one of the troubled republic’s most successful businessmen, he spent his youth in Britain where he was educated at a boarding school in the Cotswolds before studying economics at the University of Buckingham. In an interview from prison, the first time he has spoken out since his arrest over a year ago, he claimed that the charges against him are totally fabricated.
Just how the 31-year-old Osmayev went from bucolic Gloucestershire to a Ukrainian prison cell, where he stands accused of planning one of the most audacious terrorist acts in history, is a strange tale featuring allegations of torture, vendettas in the Russian secret services and rivalries in the murky world of Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin leadership.
Although he was able to fight off extradition to Russia, with the help of the European Court of Human Rights, he spent three years in a Ukrainian prison. Shortly after he regained his freedom he was fighting on the government side against the Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country.
And then another twist
In February 2015, Boris Nemtsov—a liberal Russian politician, former Deputy Prime Minister, and clear threat to Putin—was gunned down just outside the Kremlin. According to journalist Ksenia Sobchak he had been preparing a report on clandestine involvement of Russian forces inside Ukraine.
The killing was widely believed to have been carried out at the behest of the FSB and few had any hope of justice. However, almost unbelievably, the police soon rounded up five Chechens they accused of being responsible for the hit. It’s easy to be cynical and believe that these men were patsies—charged in order to cover up for state killers. But their apparent connection with Ramzan Kadyrov’s Special Forces could not be ignored. Surely something very odd was going on here.
The Unaccountable Death of Boris Nemtsov
Under Putin, investigations of such killings, of which there have been a dozen or more, have tended to be slow and inconclusive. But in the case of Nemtsov, Putin granted the F.S.B.—the country’s main security agency, of which Putin was once the director—unusually wide license to go after the killers. According to a report published earlier this week by the opposition paper Novaya Gazeta, the head of the F.S.B. presented Putin with the names of suspects on March 2nd, three days after the killing. In the following days, they arrested five people, all ethnic Chechens with apparent connections to Ramzan Kadyrov, the colorful and brutal ruler of Chechnya.
F.S.B. generals had long distrusted Kadyrov, whom Putin allows greater autonomy than any other regional official. Now the rivalry between Kadyrov and the security services had spilled into the open. “Nemtsov’s assassination seemed to have exhausted their patience,” Novaya Gazeta wrote.
We may never know the truth about why Nemtsov was murdered. Had Kadyrov gone rogue? Or was he doing the dirty work for his protector, Vladimir Putin? But, if the latter, why kill Nemtsov in front of the Kremlin? A little joke by Kadyrov—a thumb in the nose of his protector? But why would Putin allow the FSB to bring the killers in?
Then, a month after the murder, Osmaev was suddenly accused of being behind it.
Nemtsov's killer was hired by the commander of Dzhokhar Dudaev Battalion in Ukraine, Adam Osmaev
Today the investigators have irrefutable proof that all persons detained on suspicion of murder of the politician are the perpetrators, - said our source in the FSB. First of all, billing (data about calls and movements of the subscriber. - Ed.) from their mobile phones showed that they conducted surveillance of Nemtsov before the murder, following him closely. The suspects were tracked with their phones at the location where Nemtsov was present with his phone. During the murder all the detainees "were in the area": some under the bridge, some in a car, some nearby.
Zaur Dadaev pulled the trigger. He first made a confession, and then, on the advice of his lawyers, took it back. But it changes nothing, the investigation has already collected compelling evidence of his guilt. I will not give details of how this was done. The pistol was thrown into the river after the crime, it was later recovered by divers. That Zaur Dadaev immediately said to the TV cameras: "I love prophet Muhammad" - is just a cover. There was no religious motive for the killings. They cynically carried out an order. They are far from devout Muslims. In fact, just real gangsters.
And the most important thing. The executor of the murder was in close contact with Adam Osmaev, who recently became the commander of the Ukrainian battalion in the name of Dzhokhar Dudayev. They met, talked a lot on the phone. Zaur Dadaev and his cronies worked with Osmaev on Ukrainian affairs. And also with Chechens, who fought on the territory of Ukraine for the new regime. Zaur Dadaev was listed in the battalion "North" ("Sever") of the Chechen Interior Ministry, but while serving in it, in fact, was engaged in activities against Russia. He was associated with Osmaev by a certain relationship and mutual obligations.
Perhaps Osmaev was being framed—an attempt by the authorities to clear up what was obviously an embarrassing situation with Kadyrov. Or, maybe they’re telling the truth. But i find it difficult to swallow the scenario being peddled: That anti-Putin figures killed Nemtsov purely to stir up resentment with the government, and problems internationally. However, things didn’t add up neatly.
But back to last Thursday …
Assailant who attacked Osmaev in Kyiv is Russian killer working for Kadyrov
Artur Denisultanov-Kurmakayev, the attacker who shot Chechen fighter and Ukrainian patriot Adam Osmaev in Kyiv proved to be a hired assassin, wanted by special services of several countries for many years. He reportedly works for Ramzan Kadyrov, the incumbent pro-Kremlin president of Chechen Republic. Ukrainian, Russian and the U.S. outlets gathered information to prove this piece of information.
According to Ruspres, in 2006, former bodyguard of Ramzan Kadyrov, Umar Israpilov sued Russia, namely his former chief, whom he charged with kidnapping and torturing people. Back then, the bodyguard’s lawyer filed an application to police, saying that the killer had demanded that Israpilov call off his lawsuit against Kadyrov. In 2009, Israpilov was killed in Vienna, where he received sanctuary after escaping from Russia.
Kurmakayev was arrested and charged with murder. When interrogated, he told the investigators about the lists of Kadyrov’s enemies with names of 300 people to be sought and eliminated. According to the killer, 50 of these 300 lived in Austria and they were in danger; he allegedly tried to talk Israpilov into going back to Chechnya, and when he failed, he received order to kill the bodyguard, Ruspres wrote.
The New York Times that went for its own investigation into the murder of Israpilov, found out that in summer 2008, the killer illegally arrived in Europe to make Israpilov give up on his appeal from Strasbourg. Kurmakayev, who by then has changed many names and passports in Russia, hiding from special services, was offered a USD 100,000 as a reward for kidnapping or killing Israpilov.
Whatever has been going on, i think it’s important to state that this does not appear to be something akin to the murder journalists, and others, inside Russia who had been investigating Putin or otherwise protesting his rule. Rather, the closest analog would appear to be the work of Mossad in rubbing out Israel’s enemies. I don’t in any way mean to equate the morals of the situations; I refer only to the kind of operation this seems to be. Perhaps more will come to light soon.
Saturday, Jun 3, 2017 · 3:56:43 AM +00:00 · subtropolis
Wounded Chechen fighter Osmaev had his lung pierced, plugged to artificial respirator
Adam Osmaev, the pro-Ukrainian fighter of Chechen origin, leader of Dzhokhar Dudaev volunteer battalion, underwent surgery and is now in the intensive care at a hospital in Kyiv.
Osmaev, severely wounded during the shootout in Kyiv on June 1 had his left lung pierced; his condition is critical but stable, doctors say.
The attacker who posed himself as a French reporter aimed and tried to ‘get an interview’ from Osmaev and his wife Amina Okueva, is in the intensive care unit as well; he was shot by Amina four times, immediately after shooting Adam. Having undergone a surgery, the assailant is also plugged to the breathing apparatus. Doctors have not removed the bullets so far, saying it is too dangerous right now.