List of journalists killed in Russia


The dangers to journalists in Russia have been well known since the early 1990s but concern over the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006. While international monitors mentioned a dozen deaths, some sources within Russia talked of over two hundred fatalities.
The evidence has since been examined and documented in two reports, published in Russian and English, by international organizations. These revealed a basic confusion in terminology that explained the seemingly enormous numerical discrepancy: statistics of premature death among journalists were repeatedly equated with the much smaller number of targeted killings or work-related murders.
The Remembrance Day of Journalists Killed in the Line of Duty in Russia is observed on 15 December every year.

Methodology

Among international monitors, the figures quoted for deaths of journalists in Russia have varied, sometimes considerably. There are several explanations. Firstly, certain organisations are concerned with all aspects of safety in news gathering so the International Federation of Journalists and the International News Safety Institute also record accidents that have occurred at work. Secondly, some monitoring bodies include only fatalities in crossfire and dangerous assignments and those murders where they feel sure of the motive behind the lethal attack and can with confidence lobby the appropriate government; the Committee to Protect Jornalists adopts this approach. Thirdly, the term "journalist" is used by monitors as a general term to cover many different occupations within the media. Some include support staff, others do not.
In any list of deaths, compiled by monitors inside or outside the country, Russia ranks near the top for deaths. When the killing began, the brief First Chechen War took numerous journalists' lives from within Chechnya and abroad. There were also increased peacetime deaths of journalists elsewhere in the Russian Federation.
Those deliberately targeted for their work tended to be reporters, correspondents, and editors. In Russia many directors of new regional TV and radio stations have been murdered but some of these deaths are thought to relate to conflicting business interests. Photographers and cameramen are vulnerable in crossfire situations, such as the October 1993 days in Moscow and the armed conflict in the North Caucasus.

2009 reports on deaths of journalists in Russia

In June 2009 a wide-ranging investigation by the International Federation of Journalists into the deaths of journalists in Russia was published. At the same time, the IFJ launched an online database which documents over three hundred deaths and disappearances since 1993. Both the report Partial Justice and the database depend on the information gathered in Russia over the last 16 years by the country's own media monitors: the Glasnost Defense Foundation and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.
In September, in the report Justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists repeated its conclusion that Russia was one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists and added that it remains among the worst at solving their murders. Journalists died or were killed, the CPJ argued, because of the work they were doing and only one case has led to a partially successful prosecution.
Following Russia's media monitors, the IFJ database of deaths and disappearances in Russia takes into account the entire range of media occupations and every degree of uncertainty as to the motive for many of the attacks. It also allows for selection and analysis. It classifies the way in which a journalist died and it assesses each death as certainly, possibly, or most probably not, linked to the journalist's work.
Since the early 1990s, Russia's media monitors have recorded every violent or suspicious death that came to their attention. Determining which were linked to the journalist's work has not always been easy since law enforcement agencies in Russia were struggling to cope with a wave of murders and the number of unsolved killings of journalists steadily mounted. In the last few years, the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations has gathered all available information about these deaths on its Memoriam site. This made it possible to check how much these deaths have been investigated and how many have led to court cases. The IFJ data base summarises the information accumulated on the Memoriam site and makes it available in English for the first time. During a study of international fraud-detection homicide, which compared fraud detection homicide cases from the United States of America against fraud detection homicide cases from the former Soviet Republic, the murder of Paula Klebenikov illustrated a case of a contract killing of a journalist known to expose fraud in governments. At the time of his murder, he was thought to be investigating complex money laundering fraud scheme involving Chechen reconstruction projects. The investigation appears to reveal that Klebnikov had discovered that the fraud reached deep into the centers of power in the Kremlin, elements involving organized crime, and also the former KGB, now known as the FSB.

''Partial Justice'' and ''Anatomy of Injustice''

The IFJ report Partial Justice maps the changing contours of impunity in Russia. It shows and explains the process whereby particular deaths are selected by the IFJ, CPJ, and other monitors. It stresses the need for an end to total impunity in those remaining regions where no one has ever been prosecuted for killing a journalist, and for an advance beyond partial justice in those cases where it is known, or strongly suspected, that the murder of a journalist was planned and premeditated. It is not enough to put the killer on trial; they must be accompanied, or followed, by their accomplices, and the intermediaries and individuals who ordered and paid for the killing.
The IFJ report opens and closes with the Politkovskaya murder and the subsequent trial, which ran from November 2008 to February 2009. After 16 years of unsolved killings, the international outcry over her death made this a test case that might finally breach the barrier of partial justice. The evidence presented by the prosecution, unfortunately, did not convince the jury or satisfy other key participants. Anatomy of Injustice, the report by the CPJ, displays the conclusions the Committee has reached about certain deaths since 2000: the authorities do not acknowledge some of these deaths as homicide, while several others reached the courts but have led at most to the conviction of the perpetrator, not those who ordered the killing.
Following different routes the two reports reach a similar set of recommendations. They call on Russian authorities to give investigators and courts the backing they need to identify and pursue all those responsible for the deaths of journalists and, in the meanwhile, to keep the press and the public better informed about their progress in tackling such disturbing crimes.

International comparisons

In the 1990s and early 2000s the homicide rate in Russia was among the highest in the world. There were over 500 contract killings in Russia in 1994. The Committee to Protect Journalists lists Russia as "the third deadliest country in the world for journalists" since 1991, exceeded in the number of deaths only by Algeria and post-invasion Iraq. It is more revealing, perhaps, to set Russia alongside its G20 partners — not just the USA and France, but also Saudi Arabia and China. Russia's problem, shared by certain other members of G20, is not simply one of the number of deaths but that killing with impunity has persisted over time. The varied conditions in these economically important countries highlight a further crucial dimension. The killing of journalists may be the most dramatic and frequently quoted "barometer of press freedom" but it is by no means the only measure. What it signifies for a particular country can only be properly gauged in the wider context of press freedom and other liberties, present in that society. Very few journalists have been killed in China and none, it would seem, in North Korea. Other shortcomings ensure those countries occupy a lower position than Russia on any index of press freedom.
Mikhail Beketov initially survived a 2008 attack and died five years later. Immediate death is the extreme end of the spectrum of threats and intimidation.

Deaths and trials, statistics

The violent deaths of journalists started in the Yeltsin era and continued under Putin, president of Russia from 31 December 1999 to 7 May 2008. When Medvedev became president, he spoke of the need to end "legal nihilism". From 2003 to 2008 there have been a rising number of trials but by November 2009 there had yet to be a major breakthrough, under Medvedev, of either in the prosecution of pre-2008 deaths or the investigation of killings since his May 2008 inauguration. The Politkovskaya murder trial and the first arrests in the Baburova-Markelov slaying showed some inconclusive signs of movement.
PresidentYYYYYYYPPPPPPPPP–MM
Year19931994199519961997199819992000200120022003200420052006200720082009TOTAL
Murder, crossfire,
terrorist act		101222181010111712231112513356200
Murder only381612101081511201110413356165
Trials–––1144313362754250

The yearly figures in the table above are derived from the "journalists in Russia" database, where details can be found on each individual death. Certain important categories are not included. Those who have gone "missing" ; those who died in an incident, the nature of which has not been satisfactorily established; and journalists killed in work-related accidents, may be found online in the IFJ database.
The third set of figures indicates the yearly number of verdicts reached in trials for the killing of journalists. With only three exceptions these have all been for homicide. Some cases have taken six to seven years to reach court but most deaths that have resulted in prosecution take, on average, 12–24 months between the killing and the verdict.
Rates of conviction are a different matter. When the death was not related to the journalist's work the conviction rate exceeds 90%. When the journalist's death was certainly or seems likely to have been related to his or her work, the rate of acquittals rise sharply to around half of the total. Most trials are still held before a judge, aided by two lay assessors. Trial by judge and jury, which is still very rare in Russia, generally offers a more rigorous testing of evidence, robust defence of the suspects, and a higher chance of the defendant being found not guilty. The Politkovskaya murder trial, which was held before a jury, ended in February 2009 with the acquittal of all those accused.
If approximately three quarters of journalists' murders over the past 16 years were not related to their investigations and publications However, the CJES considers that up to 70% of assaults, which annually run into the dozens, are work-related. Sometimes these are very serious. In November 2008, Mikhail Beketov, chief editor of the Khimkinskaya pravda, a paper in a Moscow suburb, was beaten so severely that although he survived, and his paper even resumed limited publication, by early 2010 he had still not regained the power of speech or independent movement. He died in 2013.

Concern abroad

Over the past decade the Russian authorities have been repeatedly urged by Western governments and international media bodies to do more to investigate the deaths of journalists. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders frequently criticized Russia for what it described as a failure to investigate these murders. The organization further claimed that many of the murdered journalists had been critical of Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Between March 2000 and July 2007, Reporters Without Borders claimed 21 journalists were murdered in Russia because of their work.
Similar figures were produced by the Committee to Protect Journalists. In a June 2007 statement, the CPJ said, "A total of 47 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992, with the vast majority of killings unsolved,". Seventeen of these journalists had been killed "in the line of duty" since 2000: 14 were murdered in retaliation for their journalism, "two died in crossfire; and one was killed while covering a dangerous assignment". The CPJ was continuing to investigate the deaths of eight other journalists to see if there was a link between their murder and their work. According to the CPJ, none of the 14 murders committed since 2000 had been solved and "13 bear the marks of contract hits".
Pressure on the Russian authorities increased in late 2006 after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. In June 2007, the board of the World Association of Newspapers passed a resolution, calling on the authorities in Russia to "investigate journalist deaths more vigorously":
On 18 June 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 151, calling on Putin to "step-up efforts to investigate" the murders. In a report published in 2007, the International News Safety Institute said more journalists had died violent deaths in Russia in the previous 10 years than anywhere in the world apart from Iraq, though it offered statistics rather than details of the individual victims. The British New Statesman magazine's website, which it described as "solidarity with the dead, and in association with Amnesty International, Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Index on Censorship" published a list of 40 Russian journalists killed since 1993, representing only some of those who died.

Legal outcomes

Immediately after Politkovskaya's murder doubts were expressed about the chances of justice being done, even though the victim in this case was a journalist who had acquired a worldwide reputation. American commentator Anne Applebaum thought that the murderers of Politkovskaya would never be found. There were also some dissenting and sceptical voices.
Recent killings, in various parts of Russia, of Ilyas Shurpayev, Yury Shebalkin, Konstantin Borovko and Leonid Etkind did indeed lead to trials and convictions. This was also true of some of the men involved in the brutal, earlier murder of 23-year-old Internet journalist Vladimir Sukhomlin. Ilya Zimin's alleged killer, meanwhile, was tried in his native Moldova and acquitted. Yet these examples do not disprove the charge of partial justice since only one of the deaths was related beyond doubt to the journalistic work of the victim.
Criticism from abroad was frequently perceived and rejected as selective. However, Russia's sought-for status as a member of G8 from 1997 onwards set a benchmark that showed the continuing deaths of journalists, and of other media restrictions within the country, in an unfavourable light. Also of importance was the country's admission to the Council of Europe and, as a result, the potential involvement, after 1998, of the European Court of Human Rights as an arbiter of last resort. Unsuccessful attempts were made for the 2004 acquittal of Dmitry Kholodov's alleged killers to be examined in Strasbourg. So far the Court has only once determined the failure of the Russian authorities to pursue those responsible for the violent deaths of journalists. In 2005 it ruled that the October 1999 killing in Chechnya of cameramen Ramzan Mezhidov and Shamil Gigayev and of more than thirty other civilians who died during the same incident had not been properly investigated.

List of journalists killed in Russia

What follows is a list of journalists who have been killed in Russia since 1992. It includes deaths from all violent, premature and unexplained causes; more information can be found in the English and Russian versions of the IFJ database. An indication whether the death is certainly , possibly or most probably not linked to the journalist's investigative work and publications follows each name.

The Yeltsin years

1992–1994

1992
1993
October events in Moscow
Sunday, 3 October, from 7.30 pm onwards. Outside and inside the Ostankino TV tower.
Monday, 4 October, after midday. near Supreme Soviet building.
1994
There were also four deaths in Chechnya after the conflict there began in November.
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999

2000–2002

2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008

2008

2012

This category overlaps with that for Russia as a whole. It highlights the link between journalism, public activism, and human rights activists. In their different ways, the deaths of Dmitry Krikoryants, Dmitry Kholodov, Nadezhda Chaikova, Viktor Popkov, Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasia Baburova, Stanislav Markelov, and Natalia Estemirova all show that the troubled situation in the small North Caucasian republic reaches well beyond its formal borders.
For all who died, or were fatally wounded in Chechnya, see records in the IFJ database. Those killed in locations near or far from the North Caucasian republic whose deaths were also a consequence of the armed conflict in Chechnya.

1993

No journalists are recorded as having been killed between September 1996 and October 1999 but 22 were kidnapped during these three years and later released.

2nd Chechen war, 1999 onwards

A counter-terrorist operation by the federal authorities began in the region in September 1999. It was declared over on 16 April 2009.