LIVE UPDATES: Dmitry Tsilikin, 54, a music and art critic and journalist for a number of independent publications was found stabbed to death in his apartment in St. Petersburg.
Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies.
The previous issue is here.
Recent Analysis and Translations:
– Getting The News From Chechnya – The Crackdown On Free Press You May Have Missed
– Aurangzeb, Putin, Realism and a Lesson from History
– Why the World Should Care About the Assassination of Boris Nemtsov
– How Boris Nemtsov Was Murdered: Investigation by Novaya Gazeta
– How Stalin Returned to Russian Contemporary Life – Meduza
UPDATES BELOW
Former U.K. Attorney General Linked to Russian Mob
Tangled Web The former attorney general of Great Britain has been representing the lawyer for an alleged Russian crime family, The Daily Beast has learned, based on a tranche of email correspondence leaked online. Lord Peter Goldsmith, who served for six years under Tony Blair's premiership and is now a senior partner at the London office of U.S.
Lord Peter Goldsmith, who served for six years under Tony Blair’s premiership and is now a senior partner at the London office of U.S. law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, was retained in March 2014 by Andrey Pavlov to act as “legal advisor.” Pavlov for years acted as legal counsel for Russian crime boss Dmitry Klyuev; he was also directly implicated by whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky as being an accomplice in the theft of public Russian money. Pavlov has denied all these accusations.
Goldsmith—who provided the Blair government with the legal justification for Britain’s participation in the 2003 Iraq War— was tasked with helping Pavlov evade possible sanction by the European Parliament for being complicit in Magnitsky’s death in prison,, and for “the subsequent judicial cover-up and for the ongoing and continuing harassment of his mother and widow,” as the text for the European parliamentary resolution stated.
“We’ve been fighting legal nihilism inside of Russia for many years,” Browder emailed The Daily Beast in reaction to the revelation that Debevoise was representing Pavlov. “Now the Russians are trying to export these practices to the West. It doesn’t help that they’re finding western enablers who are willing to lend their good names.”
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Last year, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that blacklists of journalists were a “disgrace” and that Russia did not plan to initiate one.
But a number of journalists have been denied entry to Russia nonetheless, usually on grounds of “violating migration law.”
David Satter, a US journalist who live in Moscow, was denied re-entry to Russia in 2013 from Kiev. Luke Harding, a British journalist at the time the Guardian‘s Moscow correspondent, was also denied entry in February 2011. Both had published books critical of the Russian government.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
Complaints of violations of due process and manipulation of the justice system as well as bribe-taking are rampant in Russia and are extensively documented by human rights groups as well as reflected in the “Untouchables” on the Magnitsky List and the Savchenko List.
By singling out this provincial deputy likely authorities expect to create an object lesson and deter such criticism from others.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
A journalist has been found stabbed to death in St. Petesrburg, Fontanka.ru reported.
Dmitry Tsilikin, 54, was found with multiple stab wounds in his apartment at No. 55 Nauka Avenue. He was said to have died two days earlier. Tsilikin had returned from a trip to Riga last week, and relatives grew worried when they could not reach him.
The St. Petersburg branch of the Investigative Committee has opened up a murder case and has said in a statement on its web site that Tsilikin “could have become the victim of a mundane conflict,” although they said they were looking at various motives for the murder, Kommersant reported.
A laptop and a mobile phone were missing from the apartment.
Tsilikin, who was trained as an actor had in recent years worked as a critic and journalist, and was among those who worked at the first perestroika newspaper in St. Petersburg, Chas Pik.
He also worked in television at RTR and Channel 5; on the radio at Ekho Peterburga, and published articles in Vedomosti, Kommersant, RosBalt, Vogue, Elle, Ekspert, Profile and DP. He often wrote on culture — music, art, and ballet.
Colleagues expressed shock and condolences on his page on VKontakte but did not speculate as to whether his murder was related to his work.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick