vanguard blog | May 06, 2011 | 3 comments

Ultra-nationalist Russians convicted of killing lawyer, reporter

Violent attacks by ultra-nationalist Russians have increasingly shifted to focus on activists and government officials, where once gangs of skinheads were more likely to randomly target immigrants and people of color. 

Last year, a Russian judge who had tried high-profile murder cases and convicted ultra-nationalist skinheads was murdered in his home. 

This week, Nikita Tikhonov was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a human rights lawyer and a reporter. 

Tikhonov, the son of a counterintelligence officer, joined ultra-nationalist groups while studying history at Moscow State University, where he wrote a thesis on the "genocide" of ethnic Russians in Chechnya.

Police tracked down Tikhonov and Khasis by their messages on Internet forums and tapped their phones months ahead of their arrest in November 2009. In their rented Moscow apartment, investigators said the two kept an arsenal of arms and explosives, books on criminal justice and firearms, as well as detailed plans by ultra-nationalist groups for seizing power in Russia.

In 2007, "Vanguard" correspondent Christof Putzel investigated the skinhead attacks on immigrants in the award-winning piece "From Russia with Hate."

Watch the episode below:

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    vanguard blog,   VG-blog-CP
  2. tags:
    Russia,  Violence,  Christof Putzel,  Skinheads,  1 more
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3 comments // Ultra-nationalist Russians convicted of killing lawyer, reporter

  • Emucratic
  • letsliveinpeace
  • skybluskyblue
    • +1
      skybluskyblue  

    • Ironically, the nation that had the highest loss of people fighting fascists is now a prime haven to their previous enemies.
      Yes, collective assessment for a people is problematic; but I would have hoped that the generation that had that terrible fight would help to suppress the stupidity of their children. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it", and the line "only the dead have seen the end of war"— those sayings should be taught as almost a religion or a common sense assumption like "don't touch the stove, it will burn you". Unhappily, the pain of war due to ignorance does not register automatically like being burned does.

      I wonder what nation or peoples has the best record of not repleting the mistakes of the past, if any?

    • 1 year ago
shana

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