List of journalists killed in Russia

The dangers to journalists in Russia have been well known since the early 1990s but concern at the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist, author, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin...

's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006. While international monitors spoke of several dozen deaths, some sources within Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

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.

А wide-ranging investigation by the International Federation of Journalists

International Federation of Journalists

International Federation of Journalists, IFJ, is a global union federation of journalists' trade unions—the largest in the world. The organization aims to protect and strengthen the rights and freedoms of journalists...

into the deaths of journalists in Russia was published in June 2009. 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 (Russian version: Частичное правосудие) 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

Glasnost Defense Foundation

Glasnost Defense Foundation is a non-profit organization with the stated goals are the defense of journalists, journalism, and the freedom of expression in Russia...

and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations

Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations

The Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations is a press advocacy group in Russia. Founded in 2000 as part of the Russian Union of Journalists, the center is the primary media watchdog in the country and produces a variety of publications, including the weekly bulletin of media news and...

.

In its September 2009 report the Committee to Protect Journalists

Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent nonprofit organisation based in New York City that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.-History:A group of U.S...

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. The Anatomy of Injustice (Russian version: Анатомия безнаказанности) offers an account of the deaths of 17 journalists in Russia since 2000. They died or were killed, the CPJ is convinced, because of the work they were doing and in only one case, it notes, has there been a partially successful prosecution.

The IFJ report focuses on the capacity of Russian law enforcement agencies, over a longer period of time, to identify and detain those who have killed journalists. It adopted a broader approach than the CPJ study, and offered more analysis of change over time. This permitted Partial Justice to reveal a telling contrast between the rising and successful rate of prosecution for those who have killed journalists in ordinary cases of homicide and the persistent failure to prosecute or convict those responsible for murders linked to the work of journalists.

How the figures have been compiled

Among international monitors the figures quoted for deaths of journalists in Russia have varied, sometimes considerably. There are several explanations. One, certain organisations are concerned with all aspects of safety in news gathering, and so the International Federation of Journalists and the International News Safety Institute also record accidents that have occurred at work. Two, 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 CPJ adopts this approach. Three, 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 high. When the killing began the brief first Chechen war took numerous lives, of journalists from within Chechnya and from further afield. This deadly combat zone was then matched by that in the former Yugoslavia, above all in Bosnia. There were also mounting peacetime deaths of journalists elsewhere in the Russian Federation.

Those deliberately targeted for their work have tended to be reporters, correspondents and editors. In Russia many directors of new regional TV and radio stations have been murdered but most of these deaths are thought to relate to conflicting business interests. Photographers and cameramen are particularly vulnerable in crossfire situations, such as the October 1993 days in Moscow and the armed conflict in the North Caucasus.

Following Russia's media monitors, the IFJ database of deaths and disappearances in Russia embraces the entire range of media occupations and every degree of uncertainty as to the motive for many of the attacks. At the same time it allows for selection and analysis. One, it classifies the way in which a journalist died (homicide, accident, crossfire, terrorist act or not confirmed) and, two, 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 work of the journalist concerned has not always been easy since law enforcement agencies in Russia were then struggling to cope with a wave of murders, and the number of unsolved killings of journalists steadily mounted. In the last few years n the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations has gathered all available information about these deaths on its Memorium site. This made it possible to check how far these deaths have been investigated and how many have led to court cases. The IFJ data base summarises the information accumulated on the Memorium site and makes it available in English for the first time.

The most up to date information is that 30% of all the murders committed since 1993 have resulted in prosecutions. And if few reached the courts in the early 1990s, in the last few years the proportion has risen to 60% of all acknowledged homicides. This shifts the focus of concern to the quality of justice administered and, in particular, to the failure to solve the minority of very important cases within that total of targeted contract killings linked to the journalist's investigative work and publications.

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, which is 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 (the North Caucasus, St Petersburg) 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; he must be accompanied, or followed, by his 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 the 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 press and public better informed about their progress in tackling such disturbing crimes.

International comparisons

The CPJ lists Russia as "the third deadliest country in the world for journalists" since 1991, exceeded in the number of deaths only by Algeria (1993–1996) 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 (see Table 1, in IFJ report). Russia's problem, shared by certain other members of G20 (India, Brazil and Mexico), is not simply one of the number of deaths but that the 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 (or absent) 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.

And it is important to integrate into an understanding of the media situation those cases where a journalist, such as Mikhail Beketov, has survived an attack aimed at killing him (see below, "Killing not the only measure"). Death in such attacks is just the extreme end of the spectrum of threats and intimidation.

Deaths and trials, statistics

The violent deaths of journalists started in the Yeltsin era (1991–1999) 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". In the past five years, there have been a rising number of trials but by November 2009 there had yet to be a major breakthrough, under Medvedev, 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 (November 2009) showed some inconclusive signs of movement.

President	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P-M	M
year	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	TOTAL
murder,crossfire terrorist act	10	12	22	18	10	10	11	17	12	23	11	12	5	13	3	5	6	200
murder only	3	8	16	12	10	10	8	15	11	20	11	10	4	13	3	5	6	165
trials	-	-	-	1	1	4	4	3	1	3	3	6	2	7	5	4	2	50

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" (14 persons); those who died in an incident ("not confirmed", 28 persons), the nature of which has not been satisfactorily established; and journalists killed in work-related accidents (37 persons), 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, e.g. the killings of Dmitry Kholodov and Igor Domnikov, 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 rises 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, 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 (average acquittal rate of 20%). The Politkovskaya murder trial, which was held before a jury, ended in February 2009 with the acquittal of all those accused.

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 there. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...

constantly criticized Russia for what it described as a failure to investigate these murders
. The organization further claimed that many of the dead journalists had been critical of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...

. Between March 2000 and July 2007, said Reporters Without Borders, 21 journalists were murdered in Russia because of their work.

Similar figures were produced by the CPJ. 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 with their work. None of the 14 murders committed since 2000 had been solved, the CPJ said, 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":

The brutal murder on 7 October 2006 of Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....

journalist Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist, author, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin...

, known for her critical reporting on the conflict in Chechnya in which she sought to expose human rights abuses, was yet another reminder to Russian journalists that violence awaits those who investigate or criticise. It is estimated that 21 journalists have been killed since Russian President Vladimir Putin came to power in March 2000. In the great majority of cases, no one has been convicted and sentenced for the murders.

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 website of the British New Statesman

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

magazine, in what was described as "solidarity with the dead, and in association with Amnesty International

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

, Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations

Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations

, the Committee to Protect Journalists

Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent nonprofit organisation based in New York City that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.-History:A group of U.S...

and Index on Censorship

Index on Censorship

Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present chief executive of Index on Censorship, since 2008, is the author, broadcaster and commentator John Kampfner, former...

" published a list of 40 Russian journalists killed since 1993, representing only some of those who died.

Dissenting voices, legal issues

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 (cf. Dmitry Kholodov

Dmitry Kholodov

Dmitry Yuryevich Kholodov was educated as a physicist and began his working life, alongside his parents, at the defence industry institute in Klimovsk in the Moscow Region. Faced by limited career prospects he turned to journalism, first working for the local radio. In 1992 he became a reporter...

in 1994). American commentator Anne Applebaum

Anne Applebaum

Anne Elizabeth Applebaum is a journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written extensively about communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has been an editor at The Economist, and a member of the editorial board of The Washington Post...

thought that the murderers of Politkovskaya would never be found. There were also some dissenting and sceptical voices.

German author Gabriele Krone-Schmalz

Gabriele Krone-Schmalz

Gabriele Krone-Schmalz is a German broadcast journalist and author.- Biography :With an academic background in Eastern European history, political science, and Slavic studies, Krone-Schmalz holds a doctorate in history and political science...

wrote that many of the deaths of journalists could be explained by ordinary criminality. She suggested that the number of killings during Putin's presidency was no higher than under Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...

. Writing for the maverick eXile publication in Moscow, Kirill Pankratov accused the CPJ of applying different standards to different countries and for classifying certain suspicious deaths of Russian journalists as "confirmed" murders. He and others noted that some of the murders had now been solved and the suspects jailed.

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

The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the 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

European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

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.

Killing not the only or always the best measure

There are certain countries where, over the past two decades, killing of journalists has been a regular occurrence (e.g. Colombia, Philippines, India). There are authoritarian regimes where few if any journalists have been killed in the same period (e.g. China, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Cuba) - journalists know their place and other forms of coercion keep them in line. Within Russia there has been regular monitoring since the late 1990s by the Glasnost Defence Foundation and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations of all forms of intimidation or coercion used against journalists. Their evidence suggests that direct and indirect pressure on media outlets, increasingly through the courts in cases of criminal defamation, is widespread and ranges from obstruction of publishing activities, to assaults on staff and frequent threats to investigative reporters.

If approximately three quarters of the murders of journalists over the past 16 years are probably not related to their investigations and publications, the CJES considers that up to 70% of assaults, which annually run into the dozens, are work-related. Sometimes these are very serious indeed. 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 has even resumed limited publication, by early 2010 he had still not regained the power of speech or independent movement.

A list of journalists killed in Russia

What follows is a list of journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

s (reporters, editors, cameramen, photographers) who have been killed in Russia since 1992. It includes deaths from all violent, premature and unexplained causes; fuller information may be found in the English and Russian versions of the IFJ database.. An indication whether the death is certainly [J], possibly [?J] or most probably not [nJ] linked to the journalist's investigative work and publications follows each name.

1992-1994

1992

Sergey Bogdanovsky, correspondent of TV "Ostankino", killed in Moscow.

1993

15 April - Dmitry Krikoryants, correspondent for Express Chronicle weekly (Moscow), murdered in his apartment in the Chechen capital, on the night of 14–15 April. Chechnya was then de facto independent. Homicide [J].

October events in Moscow

Sunday, 3 October, from 7.30 pm onwards. Outside and inside the Ostankino TV tower.

1. Rory Peck, ARD Germany, cameraman. Crossfire [J].

2. Ivan Scopan, TF-1 France, cameraman. Crossfire [J].

3. Igor Belozerov, 4th Channel "Ostankino", editor. Crossfire [J].

4. Sergey Krasilnikov, "Ostankino" TV, video engineer. Shot at point-blank range within building. Homicide [J].

5. Vladimir Drobyshev, People and nature monthly, editor. Heart Attack [J].

Monday, 4 October, after midday. near Supreme Soviet building.

6. Alexander Sidelnikov, freelance journalist and film-maker from Saint Petersburg. Crossfire [J].

7. Alexander Smirnov, Youth Courier newspaper (Yoshkar-Ola), correspondent. Crossfire [J].

29 November - Elena Tkacheva, 26-year-old proof-reader for Kuban Courier newspaper, died in Krasnodar as a result of a bomb planted in the newspaper office. Terrorist Act [J].
9 December - Marina Iskanderova, journalist at local TV station, murdered in her apartment in Nadym. Homicide [nJ].

1994

1 February - Sergei Dubov, director of Novoye vremya publishing house, Moscow. Shot in contract killing. Homicide [nJ].
26 April - Andrei Aidzerdzis, Duma deputy and publisher. Shot in contract killing, in Khimki near Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
15 June - Yury Soltys, Interfax journalist and editor. Beaten to death in Moscow Region. Homicide [?J].
15 October - Tatyana Zhuravlyova and husband, media workers, Komsomolskaya pravda (Samara bureau). Killed in Voronezh Region while driving their car in the country. Homicide. [nJ].
17 July - Yelena Roshchina, chief editor of children's newspaper, Ivanovo. Murdered in her flat. Homicide. The gang who killed her were tried and convicted in 2000 [nJ].
17 October - Dmitry Kholodov
Dmitry Kholodov
Dmitry Yuryevich Kholodov was educated as a physicist and began his working life, alongside his parents, at the defence industry institute in Klimovsk in the Moscow Region. Faced by limited career prospects he turned to journalism, first working for the local radio. In 1992 he became a reporter...

, military correspondent of the Moskovskii Komsomolets newspaper, was killed in Moscow when a booby-trapped briefcase he had collected from a railway station locker exploded in his newspaper's offices. Homicide. Kholodov's alleged killers were tried and twice acquitted, in 2002 and in 2004 [J].

There were also four deaths in Chechnya after the conflict there began in November.

26 November - Hussein Guzuyev, director of Chechen TV & Radio Company. Grozny. Caught in crossfire between Dudayev supporters and pro-Moscow opposition [J].
14 December - Gelani Charigov, journalist with Marsho private TV company. Grozny. Crossfire [J].
22 December - Cynthia Elbaum, Freelance US photocorrespondent on assignment for Time magazine. Grozny. Crossfire [J].
31 December - Bilal Akhmadov, cameraman for Marsho TV company. Grozny. Crossfire [J].

1995-1996 (incl. 1st Chechen conflict)

1995

1 January - Vladimir Zhitarenko, correspondent of the Red Star (Krasnaya zvezda) newspaper, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
1 January - Pyotr Novikov, journalist with Smena magazine, Moscow. Homicide (linked to Anisimov killing in late 1994) [nJ].
7 January - Sultan Nuriyev, Chechnya. Not Confirmed [?J].
10 January - Jochen Piest, correspondent of the Stern
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...

magazine. Chervlyonnaya, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
14 January - Valentin Yanus, cameraman of Pskov city TV channel, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
17 February - Vyacheslav Rudnev, freelance journalist, Kaluga, published in local Vest and Znamya newspapers. Homicide [?J].
27 February - Maxim Shabalin, politics editor of Nevskoe Vremya newspaper (St Petersburg). and Felix Titov, the paper's photographer, disappeared on an assignment to Chechnya. Despite numerous expeditions, from 1995 to 1999, no trace was found of the two men's remains. Missing [J].
1 March - Vladislav Listyev
Vladislav Listyev
-External links:* - IFEX*...

, head of the new ORT TV Channel, shot dead in stairwell of his Moscow apartment block in a classic contract killing. Homicide [nJ].
3 March - Igor Kaverin, engineer with Svobodnaya Nakhodka radio station, Primorsky Region. Shot in car, Homicide [nJ].
8 March - Oleg Ochkasov, freelance journalist in Voronezh, writing for Vecherny Voronezh and Skandalnaya pochta newspapers. Homicide [nJ].
16 March - Alexei Khropov, director of Vox radio station, recently off the air. Leningradskoe Highway, Moscow Region. Homicide [nJ].
31 March - 23-year-old Ruslan Tsebiyev, Dudayev press service, Grozny, Chechnya. Homicide [?J].
6 May - Malkan Suleimanova, journalist with Ichkeria newspaper (Grozny). Died under bombardment in Shatoi, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
22 May - Farkhad Kerimov, cameraman with Associated Press TV. Executed in Vedeno, Chechnya. Homicide (war crime)[J].
5 May - Sergei Ivanov, went in search of Shabalin and Titov (above 27 February), south of Chechnya. Missing [J].
6 June - Alexander Konovalenko, journalists with Krestyanskaya gazeta, Volgograd, beating in police station led to his death. Homicide. Killer convicted in 1998 [?J].
17 June - Natalya Alyakina-Mroszek, Focus magazine (Germany) and other outlets. Shot near Budyonnovsk. Crossfire. Russian soldier found guilty of negligence in use of weapons, amnestied as Chechen war participant [J].
25 July - Andrew Shumack Jr
Andrew Shumack
Andrew Shumack was an American freelance journalist who went missing during the First Chechen War, a month after he'd left St. Petersburg for Chechnya, and is presumed dead....

, freelance US photojournalist, St Petersburg Times. Grozny, Chechnya. Missing [?J].
4 August - Sergei Nazarov, former presenter of popular TV show "Vremechko". Killed in Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
10 August - Vadim Obekhov, columnist with Vesti newspaper, Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Region. Homicide [nJ].
2 November - Andrei Ulanov, chief editor of Togliatti segodnya newspaper. Togliatt, Samara Region. Contract killing, homicide [nJ].
8 November - Sergei Ananyev, head of press service, East Siberian organised crime department. Murdered in Irkutsk. Outcome of 2000 trial not clear [nJ].
12 December - Victor Litvinov, "Golos Rossii" radio station commentator, Moscow, died after street attack. Homicide [nJ].
10 December - 25-year-old Yaroslav Zvaltsev, financial director of the Russky dom newspaper in Magnitogorsk, shot in contract killing. Homicide [nJ].
12 December - Shamkhan Kagirov, correspondent of the Vozrozhdenie newspaper, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
26 December - Vadim Alferyev, worked as journalist for local press and TV in Krasnoyarsk, where he died after a savage beating. Homicide [?J].

1996

25 January - Oleg Slabynko, founder of "Moment Istiny" corporation, producer of a program of the same name, a director of ORT (today Channel One TV), murdered in his Moscow apartment. Contract killing [nJ].
8 February - Yury Litvinov, engineer, and Alexander Zaitsev, director, of Forward cable television. Found shot in car, Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Region. Contract killing? [nJ].
26 February - Felix Solovyov, famous photographer, Aeroflot journal editorial board, murdered in Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
11 March - Victor Pimenov, cameraman with Vaynakh TV company (Chechnya). Grozny, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
30 March - Nadezhda Chaikova, investigative journalist for Obshchaya Gazeta, executed in Chechnya, body found near village of Gekhi. Homicide (war crime) [J].
18 April - Anatoly Yagodin, correspondent for Na Boyevom Postu forces newspaper, killed by Chechen militants. Assinovskaya, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
9 May - Nina Yefimova, correspondent for Vozrozhdeniye newspaper, Chechnya. Grozny, Chechnya. Homicide [J].
11 May - Victor Mikhailov, crime correspondent for Zabaikalsky rabochy newspaper. Chita. Homicide [nJ].
26 July - Nikita Chigarkov, staff member of Utrenniy ekspress, beaten and robbed. Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
1 August - Ivan Gogun, Groznensky rabochy correspondent. Grozny, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
11 August - Ramzan Khadjiev, ORT correspondent, shot outside checkpoint in Chechnya. Grozny, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
16 September - En Chan Kim, correspondent for various Sakhalin
Sakhalin
Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...

newspapers and Blagodatnaya Semya magazine. Zhulebino, Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
27 October - Anatoly Tyutinkov, assistant chief editor of Vecherniy Peterburg. Incident not confirmed, St Petersburg. [nJ]
29 October - Lev Bogomolov, Kaluga Vechernyaya chief editor, Kaluga. Incident not confirmed [nJ].
31 October - Sergei Semisotov, Editor of Traktir po Pyatnitsam newspaper. Volgograd. Homicide [nJ].
10 November - Marina Gorelova, reporter for Otechestvo TV company and Yury Shmakov, Otechestvo TV consultant. Kotlyakovskoe cemetery, Moscow. Terrorist act. Two convicted in 2003 for 16 deaths, incl. two journalists, caused by the explosion. [J]
6 December - Kirill Polenov, freelance journalist. Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia. Homicide [nJ].
7 December - Anatoly Belousov, deputy chief editor of Red Star (Krasnaya Zvezda)., Moscow Region. Homicide [nJ].

1997-1999

1997

16 January - Alexei Yeldashov, journalist for local print and rado. Khabarovsk, Primorsky Region. Homicide [nJ].
16 January - Nikolai Lapin, chief editor "Obo vsyom" newspaper. Togliatti, Samara Region. Homicide [nJ].
3 February - Yury Baldin, chief editor at Focus TV. Chelyabinsk. Homicide [nJ].
12 February - Vyacheslav Zvonarev, editor with Takt TV company. Kursk. Homicide [nJ].
25 February - Vadim Biryukov, chief editor of "Delovye lyudi" magazine, Novolesnaya St, Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
23 March - Vladimir Aliev, , Prokhladnoe, Kabardino-Balkaria. Homicide [nJ].
30 March - Nikolai Mozolin, , Kirovsk, Leningrad Region. Homicide [nJ].
10 May - Alexander Korkin, , Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yaroslavl Region. Homicide [nJ].
6 August - Valery Krivosheyev, , Lipetsk. Homicide [nJ].
19 October - Lydia Lazarenko, , Nizhny Novgorod. Homicide [nJ].

1998

30 January - Vladimir Zbaratsky, , Mosfilmoskaya St, Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
2 April - Ivan Fedyunin, correspondent of the Bryanskie Izvestia newspaper. Homicide, Bryansk [nJ].
6 April - Lira Lobach, media worker. district, Tomsk Region. Homicide [nJ].
20 May - Igor Myasnikov, , Kineshma, Yaroslavl Region. Homicide [nJ].
7 June - Larisa Yudina, chief editor of the Sovetskaya Kalmykia Segodnya newspaper. Elista, Kalmykia. Contract killing. Perpetrators convicted (1999), but not those behind her murder [J].
28 July - Vladimir Ustinov, , Ivanovo. Homicide [nJ].
17 August - Sergei Semenduyev, , Makhachkala, Dagestan. Missing [nJ].
24 August - Anatoly Levin-Utkin, , St Petersburg. Homicide [?J].
27 August - Mirbaba Seidov, homicide, Kaliningrad Region. Homicide [nJ].
29 August - Victor Shamro, , homicide, St Petersburg. Homicide [nJ].
2 September - Farid Sidaui, correspondent of the Prosto nedvizhimost magazine. Ramenka St, Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
30 December - Sergei Chechugo,, Vladivostok. Not confirmed [?J].

1999

19 February - Gennady Bodrov, Homicide [nJ].
25 February - Valentina Mirolyubova and Nikolai Mirolyubov, Homicide [nJ].
4 March - Andrei Polyakov, Homicide [nJ].
30 May - Alexei Kulanov, Homicide [nJ].
30 June - Vadim Rudenko, Homicide.
30 August - Lubov Loboda, Kuibyshev (Novosibirsk Region). Contract killing. Perpetrator, intermediary and man who ordered her dead all charged and convicted [nJ].
27 September - Christopher Reese, Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
27 October - Supyan Ependiyev, correspondent of the Groznenskiy Rabochy newspaper, Chechnya. Crossfire [J].
29 October - Cameramen Shamil Gigayev and Ramzan Mezhidov, national TVC channel and local Chechen TV. Shami-Yurt, Chechnya. Crossfire. 2005 Judgment by European Court of Human Rights [J].

2000-2002

2000

1 February - Vladimir Yatsina, a photocorrespondent with ITAR-TASS. On his first and only trip to Chechnya he was kidnapped and later killed (by a group of Wahhabis some suggest). Homicide [J].
10 February - Ludmila Zamana, Samara. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
9 March - Artyom Borovik, Sovershenno sekretno periodical and publishing house, director and journalist. Sheremetyevo-1 Airport, Moscow. Incident not confirmed [?J].
22 March - Luisa Arzhieva, correspondent for Istina mira newspaper (Moscow). Avtury, Chechnya. Crossfire [?J].
17 April - Oleg Polukeyev, Homicide.
1 May - Boris Gashev, literary critic, . Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
13 May - Alexander Yefremov, Chechnya. A photojournalist with west Siberian newspaper Nashe Vremya, Yefremov died when militants blew up a military jeep in which he was travelling. On previous assignments, Yefremov won acclaim for his news photographs from the war-torn region. Crossfire [J].
16 July - Igor Domnikov, from Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....

, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. Struck over the head with a hammer in the stairwell of his Moscow apartment building, Domnikov lay in a coma for two months. His murderer was identified in 2003 and convicted in 2007 http://cpj.org/2000/07/cpj-urges-thorough-investigation-of-domnikov-killi.php. The men who ordered and organised the attack have been named by his paper but not charged. Homicide [J].
26 July - Sergei Novikov, Radio Vesna, Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...

. Shot in a contract killing in stairwell of his apartment building. Claimed that he often criticized the administration of Smolensk Region. Homicide [?J].
21 September - Iskander Khatloni, Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...

, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. A native of Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

, Khatloni was killed at night in an axe attack on the street outside his Moscow apartment block. His assailant and the motive of the murder remain unknown. A RFE/RL spokeswoman said Khatloni worked on stories about the human-rights abuses in Chechnya. Homicide [nJ].
3 October - Sergei Ivanov, Lada-TV, Togliatti
Tolyatti
Tolyatti , also known as Togliatti, is a city in Samara Oblast, Russia. It serves as the administrative center of Stavropolsky District, although it is administratively separate from it...

. Shot five times in the head and chest in front of his apartment building. As director of largest independent television company in Togliatti, he was an important player on the local political scene. Homicide. Gang responsible on trial [nJ].
18 October - Georgy Garibyan, journalist with Park TV (Rostov), murdered in Rostov-on-Don [nJ].
20 October - Oleg Goryansky, freelance journalist, press & TV. Murdered in Cherepovets, Vologda Region. Conviction [nJ].
21 October - Raif Ablyashev, photographer with Iskra newspaper. Kungur, Perm Region. Homicide [nJ].
3 November - Sergei Loginov, Lada TV (Togliatti). Incident not confirmed [nJ].
20 November - Pavel Asaulchenko, cameraman for Austrian TV, Moscow. Contract killing. Conviction of perpetrator [nJ].
23 November - Adam Tepsurkayev, Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

, Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

. A Chechen cameraman, he was shot at his neighbor's house in the village of Alkhan-Kala (aka Yermolovka). Tepsurkayev filmed most of Reuters' footage from Chechnya in 2000, including the Chechen rebel Shamil Basayev
Shamil Basayev
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen rebel movement.Starting as a field commander in the Transcaucasus, Basayev led guerrilla campaigns against the Russian troops for years, as well as launching mass-hostage takings of civilians, with his goal...

having his foot amputated. Homicide (war crime) [J].
28 November - Nikolai Karmanov, retired journalist. Lyubim, Yaroslavl Region. Homicide [nJ].
23 December - Valery Kondakov, freelance photographer. Killed in Armavir, Krasnodar Region [nJ].

2001

1 February - Eduard Burmagin, Homicide.
24 February - Leonid Grigoryev, Homicide [nJ].
8 March - Andrei Pivovarov, Homicide.
31 March - Oleg Dolgantsev, Homicide [nJ].
17 May - Vladimir Kirsanov, chief editor. Kurgan, Urals Federal District. Homicide [J].
2 June - Victor Popkov, Novaya gazeta contributore, died in Moscow Region hospital. Wounded in Chechnya two months earlier. Crossfire [J].
11 September - Andrei Sheiko, Homicide [nJ].
19 September - Eduard Markevich, 29, editor and publisher of local newspaper Novy Reft in Sverdlovsk
Sverdlovsk Oblast
Sverdlovsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in the Urals Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Yekaterinburg formerly known as Sverdlovsk. Population: -Geography:...

Region. Shot in the back in a contract killing, homicide [J].
5 November - Elina Voronova, Homicide [nJ].
16 November - Oleg Vedenin, Homicide.
21 November - Alexander Babaikin, Homicide [nJ].
1 December - Boris Mityurev, Homicide.

2002

18 January - Svetlana Makarenko, Homicide.
4 March - Konstantin Pogodin, Novoye Delo newspaper, Nizhni Novgorod. Homicide.
8 March - Natalya Skryl, Nashe Vremya newspaper, Taganrog
Taganrog
Taganrog is a seaport city in Rostov Oblast, Russia, located on the north shore of Taganrog Bay , several kilometers west of the mouth of the Don River. Population: -History of Taganrog:...

. Homicide [?J].
31 March - Valery Batuyev, Moscow News
Moscow News
The Moscow News, which began publication in 1930, is Russia’s oldest English-language publication newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the now defunct Russian Moskovskiye Novosti.-History:...

newspaper, Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
1 April - Sergei Kalinovsky, Moskovskij Komsomolets local edition, Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...

. Homicide [nJ].
4 April - Vitaly Sakhn-Vald, photojournalist, Kursk
Kursk
Kursk is a city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur, Tuskar, and Seym Rivers. The area around Kursk was site of a turning point in the Russian-German struggle during World War II and the site of the largest tank battle in history...

. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
25 April - Leonid Shevchenko, Pervoye Chtenie newspaper, Volgograd
Volgograd
Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...

. Homicide [nJ].
29 April - Valery Ivanov, founder and chief editor of Tolyattinskoye Obozrenie newspaper, Samara Region. Contract killing [J].
20 May - Alexander Plotnikov, Gostiny Dvor newspaper, Tyumen
Tyumen
Tyumen is the largest city and the administrative center of Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located on the Tura River east of Moscow. Population: Tyumen is the oldest Russian settlement in Siberia. Founded in 16th century to support Russia's eastward expansion, the city has remained one of the most...

. Homicide.
6 June - Pavel Morozov, Homicide.
25 June - Oleg Sedinko, founder of Novaya Volna TV & Radio Company, Vladivostok
Vladivostok
The city is located in the southern extremity of Muravyov-Amursky Peninsula, which is about 30 km long and approximately 12 km wide.The highest point is Mount Kholodilnik, the height of which is 257 m...

. Contract killing, explosive in stairwell [nJ].
20 July - Nikolai Razmolodin, general director of Europroject TV & Radio Company, Ulyanovsk
Ulyanovsk
Ulyanovsk The city is the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin , for whom it is named.-History:Simbirsk was founded in 1648 by the boyar Bogdan Khitrovo. The fort of "Simbirsk" was strategically placed on a hill on the Western bank of the Volga River...

. Homicide.
21 July - Maria Lisichkina Homicide [nJ].
27 July - Sergei Zhabin, press service of the Moscow Region governor. Homicide [nJ].
18 August - Nikolai Vasiliev, Cheboksary
Cheboksary
-Twin towns/sister cities:Cheboksary is twinned with: Eger in Hungary Antalya in Turkey Santa Clara in CubaAlso Partnerships are shown with: Rundu in Namibia -External links:****...

city, Chuvashia. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
25 August - Paavo Voutilainen, former chief editor of Karelia magazine, Karelia
Karelia
Karelia , the land of the Karelian peoples, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland, Russia, and Sweden...

. Homicide [nJ].
4 September - Leonid Kuznetsov, "Periodicals of Mari-El" publishing house, Yoshkar-Ola
Yoshkar-Ola
Yoshkar-Ola is the capital city of the Mari El Republic, Russia. Population: Yoshkar-Ola means red city in Mari. The current name is the third to have been given to the city. The city was known as Tsaryovokokshaysk before 1919 and as Krasnokokshaysk between 1919 and 1927...

. Incident not confirmed [?J].
20 September - Igor Salikov, head of information security at Moskovskij Komsomolets newspaper in Penza
Penza
-Honors:A minor planet, 3189 Penza, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1978, is named after the city.-Notable residents:...

. Contract killing [nJ].
26 September - Roderick (Roddy) Scott, Frontline TV Company, Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

. Crossfire [J].
2 October - Yelena Popova, Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
19 October - Leonid Plotnikov Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
26 October - Tamara Voinova (Stavropol) and Maxim Mikhailov (Kaliningrad), Dubrovka theatre siege ("Nord Ost" show), Moscow. Terrorist Act [nJ].
21 December - Dmitry Shalayev, Kazan, Tatarstan. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].

2003-2005

2003

7 January - Vladimir Sukhomlin, Internet journalist and editor, Serbia.ru, Moscow. Homicide. Off-duty police convicted of his murder, not those behind this contract killing [J].
11 January - Yury Tishkov, sports commentator, Moscow. Contract killing [nJ].
21 February - Sergei Verbitsky, publisher BNV newspaper. Chita. Homicide [nJ].
18 April - Dmitry Shvets, TV-21 Northwestern Broadcasting, Murmansk
Murmansk
Murmansk is a city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It serves as a seaport and is located in the extreme northwest part of Russia, on the Kola Bay, from the Barents Sea on the northern shore of the Kola Peninsula, not far from Russia's borders with Norway and Finland...

. Deputy director of the independent TV-21 station (Northwestern Broadcasting), he was shot dead outside the TV offices. Shvets' colleagues said the station had received multiple threats for its reporting on influential local politicians. Contract killing [nJ].
3 July - Yury Shchekochikhin, Novaya gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....

, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. Deputy editor of Novaya gazeta and a Duma deputy since 1993, he died just a few days before his scheduled trip to USA to discuss the results of his journalist investigation with FBI officials. He investigated "Three Whales Corruption Scandal
Three Whales Corruption Scandal
The Three Whales Corruption Scandal is a major corruption scandal in Russia involving several furniture companies and federal government bodies which has unfolded since 2000.-2000 smuggling investigation :...

" that allegedly involved high-ranking FSB
FSB (Russia)
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation is the main domestic security agency of the Russian Federation and the main successor agency of the Soviet Committee of State Security . Its main responsibilities are counter-intelligence, internal and border security, counter-terrorism, and...

officials. Shchekochikhin died from an acute allergic reaction. There has been much speculation about cause of his death. Investigation into his death has been opened and closed four times. Homicide [J].
4 July - Ali Astamirov, France Presse. Went missing in Nazran [?J].
18 July - Alikhan Guliyev, freelance TV journalist, from Ingushetia. Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
10 August - Martin Kraus, Dagestan. On way to Chechnya. Homicide [nJ].
9 October - Alexei Sidorov, Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye, Togliatti
Tolyatti
Tolyatti , also known as Togliatti, is a city in Samara Oblast, Russia. It serves as the administrative center of Stavropolsky District, although it is administratively separate from it...

. Second editor-in-chief of this local newspaper to be murdered. Predecessor Valery Ivanov shot in April 2002. Homicide. Supposed killer acquitted [?J].
24 October - Alexei Bakhtin, journalist and businessman, formerly Mariiskaya pravda. Mari El. Homicide [nJ].
30 October - Yury Bugrov, editor of Provincial Telegraph. Balakovo, Saratov Region. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
25 December - Pyotr Babenko, editor of Liskinskaya gazeta. Liski, Voronezh Region. Homicide [nJ].

2004

1 February - Yefim Sukhanov, ATK-Media, Archangelsk. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
23 March - Farit Urazbayev,cameraman, Vladivostok TV/Radio Company, Vladivostok. Incident not Confirmed [nJ].
2 May - Shangysh Mongush, correspondent with Khemchiktin Syldyzy newspaper, Tuva
Tuva
The Tyva Republic , or Tuva , is a federal subject of Russia . It lies in the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders with the Altai Republic, the Republic of Khakassia, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk Oblast, and the Republic of Buryatia in Russia and with Mongolia to the...

. Homicide [?J].
9 May - Adlan Khasanov, Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...

reporter, died in Grozny bomb attack that killed Chechen President Ahmed Kadyrov. Terrorist Act [J].
9 June - Paul Klebnikov, chief editor of newly-established Russian version of Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

magazine, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. Contract killing, alleged perpetrators put on trial and acquitted. Homicide [J].
1 July - Maxim Maximov, journalist with Gorod newspaper, St Petersburg. Body not found. Homicide [J].
10 July - Zoya Ivanova, TV presenter, Buryatia State Television & Radio Company, Ulan Ude, Buryatia. Homicide [nJ].
17 July - Pail Peloyan, editor of Armyansky Pereulok magazine, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. Homicide [nJ].
3 August - Vladimir Naumov, nationalist reporter, Cossack author (Russky Vestnik, Zavtra), Moscow Region. Homicide [nJ].
24 August - Svetlana Shishkina,journalist, Kazan, Tatarstan. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
24 August - Oleg Belozyorov, Moscow-Volgograd flight. Terrorist Act [nJ].
18 September - Vladimir Pritchin, editor-in-chief of North Baikal TV & Radio Company, Buryatia. Homicide [?J].
27 September - Jan Travinsky (St Petersburg), in Irkutsk
Irkutsk
Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...

as political activist for election campaign. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].

2005

23 May - Pavel Makeyev, reporter for TNT-Pulse Company, Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don
-History:The mouth of the Don River has been of great commercial and cultural importance since the ancient times. It was the site of the Greek colony Tanais, of the Genoese fort Tana, and of the Turkish fortress Azak...

. Run down while photographing illegal street racing. Incident not Confirmed [?J].
28 July - Magomed Varisov, political analyst and journalist, shot dead near his home in Makhachkala
Makhachkala
-Twin towns/sister cities:Makhachkala is twinned with: Sfax, Tunisia Siping, China Spokane, United States Vladikavkaz, Russia Yalova, Turkey Ndola, Zambia-See also:*...

, Dagestan. He "had received threats, was being followed and had unsuccessfully sought help from the local police" according to Committee to Protect Journalists
Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent nonprofit organisation based in New York City that promotes press freedom and defends the rights of journalists.-History:A group of U.S...

. Sharia Jamaat claimed responsibility for the murder. Homicide [J].
31 August - Alexander Pitersky, Baltika Radio reporter, Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. Homicide [?J].
3 September - Vladimir Pashutin, Smolensky Literator newspaper, Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...

. Not Confirmed [nJ].
13 October - Tamirlan Kazikhanov, head of press service for Anti-Terrorist Center of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del is the interior ministry of Russia. Its predecessor was founded in 1802 by Alexander I in Imperial Russia...

's Main Department for the Southern Federal District
Southern Federal District
Southern Federal District is one of the eight federal districts of Russia. Its territory lies mostly on the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Its population was 13,856,700 according to the 2010 Census, living on an area of...

, Nalchik
Nalchik
Nalchik is the capital city of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, Russia, situated at an altitude of in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains; about northwest of Beslan in the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania. It covers an area of...

. Crossfire [J].
4 November - Kira Lezhneva, reporter with Kamensky rabochii newspaper, Sverdlovsk
Sverdlovsk Oblast
Sverdlovsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia located in the Urals Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Yekaterinburg formerly known as Sverdlovsk. Population: -Geography:...

Region. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].

2006-2008

2006

8 January - Vagif Kochetkov, newly-appointed Trud correspondent in the region, killed and robbed in Tula
Tula, Russia
Tula is an industrial city and the administrative center of Tula Oblast, Russia. It is located south of Moscow, on the Upa River. Population: -History:...

. Acquittal [nJ].
26 February - Ilya Zimin, worked for NTV Russia
NTV Russia
NTV is a Russian television channel. As a subsidiary of Vladimir Gusinsky's company Media-Most, it was a pioneer in the post-Soviet independent television media, but was later taken over by state-owned Gazprom.- History :...

television channel, killed in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

flat. Suspect in Moldova trial. Acquittal [nJ].
4 May - Oksana Teslo, media worker, Moscow Region. Arson attack on dacha. Homicide [nJ].
14 May - Oleg Barabyshkin, director of radio station, Chelyabinsk. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
23 May - Vyacheslav Akatov, special reporter, Business Moscow TV show, murdered in Mytyshchi Moscow Region. Killer caught and convicted. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
25 June - Anton Kretenchuk, cameraman, local "Channel 38" TV, killed in Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don
-History:The mouth of the Don River has been of great commercial and cultural importance since the ancient times. It was the site of the Greek colony Tanais, of the Genoese fort Tana, and of the Turkish fortress Azak...

. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
25 July - Yevgeny Gerasimenko, journalist with Saratovsky Rasklad newspaper. Murdered in Saratov
Saratov
-Modern Saratov:The Saratov region is highly industrialized, due in part to the rich in natural and industrial resources of the area. The region is also one of the more important and largest cultural and scientific centres in Russia...

. Conviction [nJ].
31 July - Anatoly Kozulin, retired freelance journalist. Ukhta, Komi. Homicide [nJ].
8 August - Alexander Petrov, editor-in-chief, Right to Choose magazine Omsk
Omsk
-History:The wooden fort of Omsk was erected in 1716 to protect the expanding Russian frontier along the Ishim and the Irtysh rivers against the Kyrgyz nomads of the Steppes...

, murdered with family while on holiday in Altai Republic
Altai Republic
Altai Republic is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the town of Gorno-Altaysk. The area of the republic is . Population: -Geography:...

. Under-age murderer charged and prosecuted. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
17 August - Elina Ersenoyeva, reporter for Chechenskoye obshchestvo newspaper. Abducted in Grozny, Chechnya. Missing [?J].
13 September - Vyacheslav Plotnikov,reporter, local "Channel 41" TV, Voronezh
Voronezh
Voronezh is a city in southwestern Russia, the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast. It is located on both sides of the Voronezh River, away from where it flows into the Don. It is an operating center of the Southeastern Railway , as well as the center of the Don Highway...

. Incident not Confirmed [nJ].
7 October - Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist, author, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin...

, commentator with Novaya gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....

, Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, shot in her apartment building's elevator;. Four accused in contract killing, acquitted in February 2009 [J].
16 October - Anatoly Voronin, Itar-TASS news agency, Moscow. Homicide [nJ].
28 December - Vadim Kuznetsov, editor-in-chief of World & Home. Saint Petersburg magazine, killed in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

. Homicide [nJ].

2007

14 January - Yury Shebalkin, retired journalist, formerly with Kaliningradskaya pravda. Homicide in Kaliningrad. Conviction [nJ].
20 January - Konstantin Borovko,presenter of "Gubernia" TV company , killed in Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk
Khabarovsk is the largest city and the administrative center of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located some from the Chinese border. It is the second largest city in the Russian Far East, after Vladivostok. The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia...

. Homicide. Conviction [nJ].
2 March - Ivan Safronov, military columnist of Kommersant
Kommersant
Kommersant is a commerce-oriented newspaper published in Russia. , the circulation was 131,000.- History :The newspaper was initially published in 1909, and it was closed down following the Bolshevik seizure of power and the introduction of censorship in 1917.In 1989, with the onset of press...

newspaper. Died in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, cause of death disputed. Incident not Confirmed. Investigation under Incitement to Suicide (Article 110) [?J].
15 March - Leonid Etkind, director at Karyera newspaper. Abduction and homicide in Vodnik, Saratov Region. Conviction [nJ].
5 April - Vyacheslav Ifanov, Novoye televidenie Aleiska, cameraman. Previously attacked by local military. Aleisk, Altai. Incident not Confirmed [?J].

Marina Pisareva, deputy head of Russian office of German media group Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann AG is a multinational media corporation founded in 1835, based in Gütersloh, Germany. The company operates in 63 countries and employs 102,983 workers , which makes it the most international media corporation in the world. In 2008 the company reported a €16.118 billion consolidated...

was found dead at her country cottage outside Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

in April

2008

(Putin's final months as president)

8 February - Yelena Shestakova, former journalist, St Petersburg. Killer sent to psychiatric prison. Homicide [nJ].
21 March - Gadji Abashilov, chief of Dagestan State TV & Radio Company VGTRK, shot in his car in Makhachkala. Homicide [?J].
21 March - Ilyas Shurpayev, Dagestani journalist covering Caucasus on Channel One
Channel One (Russia)
Channel One is the first television channel to broadcast in the Soviet Union. The channel was renamed Ostankino Channel 1 in 1991, after the Soviet Union broke up and the Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation. According to a recent government publication, the Russian government controls 51%...

, was strangled with a belt by robbers in Moscow. Alleged killers tracked to Tajikistan and convicted there of his murder. Homicide [?J].

2008-2010

2008

31 August - Magomed Yevloyev
Magomed Yevloyev
Magomed Yakhyаvich Yevloyev was an Ingush journalist, lawyer, and businessman, and the owner of the news website Ingushetiya.ru, known for being highly critical of Murat Zyazikov, the President of Ingushetia, a federal subject of Russia bordering Chechnya...

, Ingush oppositionist, founder of Ingushetiya.ru
Ingushetiya.ru
Ingushetia.org is a non-government Ingush news agency and web site and was owned by Magomed Yevloyev. Its server is located in the United States....

, Moscow-based lawyer, shot on return to country while in custody of Ingush
Ingushetia
The Republic of Ingushetia is a federal subject of Russia , located in the North Caucasus region with its capital at Magas. In terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's federal subjects except for the two federal cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg...

police officers. Killer convicted of negligent homicide, sentence subsequently mitigated. Homicide. Conviction [J].
2 September - Abdulla Alishayev
Abdulla Alishayev
Abdulla Telman Alishayev was a Russian Dagestani journalist and writer. Alishayev was the television host of a popular mainstream Islamic television station in the Republic of Dagestan, a multi-ethnic Russian republic within the Caucasus region.Alishayev hosted a popular Islamic themed television...

, (aka Telman Alishayev), TV presenter on Muslim channel, shot dead in car, Makhachkala. Homicide [J].

2009

4 January - Shafig Amrakhov, Murmansk, shot in stairwell entrance in late December 2008. Homicide [nJ].
4 January - Vladislav Zakharchuk, manager with Arsenyevskie vesti newspaper, Vladivostok. Arson suggested cause of death. Incident not Confirmed [?J].
19 January - Anastasia Baburova, Novaya gazeta, Moscow.On 19 January Stanislav Markelov
Stanislav Markelov
Stanislav Yuryevich Markelov was a human rights lawyer and journalist who wrote investigative articles on Chechnya. Markelov had been the attorney for the family of Elza Kungaeva, a young Chechen woman killed by Russian colonel Yuri Budanov, who was released from prison in mid-January, 15 months...

, lawyer for Novaya gazeta, anti-fascist activist and opponent of human rights abuses in Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

, was shot and killed in the centre of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. With him died Anastasia Baburova
Anastasia Baburova
Anastasia Eduardivna Baburova was a journalist for Novaya Gazeta and a student of journalism at Moscow State University. She was born in Sevastopol, Ukraine.A member of Autonomous Action, she investigated activities of neo-Nazi groups...

a trainee reporter with Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....

, and a fellow anti-fascist activist. In early November 2009 a man and a woman were arrested for the killing. Homicide [J].
30 March - Sergei Protazanov, layout artist with Grazhdanskoye soglasie newspaper, Khimki nr. Moscow. Link to work questioned. Incident not Confirmed [nJ].
29 June - Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, chief editor of Corruption and Criminality newspaper, Volgograd. Cause of death remains unclear. Incident not Confirmed [?J].
15 July - Natalia Estemirova, a human rights activist with Memorial
Memorial
A memorial is an object which serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person or an event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or art objects such as sculptures, statues or fountains, and even entire parks....

, who worked with journalists from Novaya gazeta, especially Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist, author, and human rights activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin...

, and occasionally published in the newspaper herself, having been a TV reporter pre-1999. After years of investigating murders and kidnapping in Chechnya Estemirova was herself abducted that morning in Grozny and found, shot dead, by the roadside several hours later in neighbouring Ingushetia
Ingushetia
The Republic of Ingushetia is a federal subject of Russia , located in the North Caucasus region with its capital at Magas. In terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's federal subjects except for the two federal cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg...

. Homicide [J].
11 August - Malik Akhmedilov, deputy chief editor of the Avar language
Avar language
The modern Avar language belongs to the Avar–Andic group of the Northeast Caucasian language family....

newspaper Khakikat (Truth), was found shot dead near the Dagestan capital Makhachkala
Makhachkala
-Twin towns/sister cities:Makhachkala is twinned with: Sfax, Tunisia Siping, China Spokane, United States Vladikavkaz, Russia Yalova, Turkey Ndola, Zambia-See also:*...

. Homicide [?J].
25 October - Maksharip Aushev was shot dead in Nalchik, capital of Kabardino-Balkaria. When Magomed Yevloyev gave up running Ingushetia.ru, and his replacement (Rosa Malsagova) had to flee abroad to escape threats and harassment, Aushev ran the successor website Ingushetia.org. Link to past or present work unclear. Homicide [?J].
16 November - Olga Kotovskaya, Kaskad radio & TV company, Kaliningrad. Fall from height? Incident not Confirmed. Investigation under "Incitement to suicide" (Article 110) [?J].

2010

20 January - Konstantin Popov died from a beating received a fortnight earlier by Russian police, in a detoxification centre for drunk and disorderly. 26-year-old police sergeant charged with his killing. Homicide [nJ].
23 February - Journalist Ivan Stepanov was murdered at his dacha. Homicide [nJ].
20 March - Maxim Zuyev was found murdered in a Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad is a seaport and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea...

flat he was renting. Seven years earlier he was interrogated by the city's police for publishing an anonymous letter alleging corruption among high-ranking police officers in the enclave. "Crime solved", says Investigative Committee [?J].
5 May - Shamil Aliyev, founder of radio stations, director of local TV, showbiz impresario, Makhachkala, Dagestan. Homicide [?J]
13 May - Said Magomedov, director of local television station, Sergokalinsky district, Dagestan. Shot dead when travelling with repairmen to restore sabotaged TV transmitter. Terrorist act [J].
25 June - Dmitry Okkert, Moscow. A presenter with the Expert TV channel, Okkert was found stabbed to death in his own apartment. The director of the Expert media holding, Valery Fadeyev, does not believe that the brutal killing of his colleague was linked to his journalistic activities. Homicide [?J].
25 July - Bella Ksalova, Cherkessk. A correspondent for the Caucasian Knot website and news agency, Ksalova died after being hit by a car on the street where she lived. Not confirmed [?J]
1 August - Malika Betiyeva, Grozny-Shatoi highway. The deputy chief editor of Molodyozhnaya smena, and Chechnya correspondent of the "Dosh" (Word) magazine, died with four of her immediate family in a car crash. Not confirmed [?J]
11 August - Magomed Sultanmagomedov, Makhachkala. The director of the "Makhachkala TV" station was assassinated in the Dagestan capital when his vehicle came under gunfire [?J]

Journalists killed reporting on Chechnya

This category overlaps with that for Russia as a whole. It highlights the link in these extreme conditions between journalism, public activism and human rights activities. In their different ways the deaths of Dmitry Krikoryants, Dmitry Kholodov, Nadezhda Chaikova, Viktor Popkov

Viktor Popkov

Viktor Alekseyevich Popkov Виктор Алексеевич Попков was a Russian dissident, humanitarian, human rights activist and journalist. He spent the last 15 years of his life in the hot spots of the falling Soviet Union, including the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, the Nagorno-Karabakh War and the war in...

, 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 received their fatal wounds, in Chechnya see records in IFJ database. There were those killed in locations near or far from the North Caucasian republic, e.g. Natalya Alyakina, Anna Politkovskaya, whose deaths were also a consequence of the armed conflict in Chechnya.

1993

Dmitry Krikoryants, night of 14–15 April 1993, Grozny. Murdered over a year before open conflict broke out in Chechnya (first between pro-Dudayev and pro-Moscow factions, then with the intervention of federal forces), the killing of Krikoryants was linked to his investigation of corrupt activities of the local regime, at home and abroad.

1st Chechen war, 1994-1996

Cynthia Elbaum
Cynthia Elbaum
Cynthia Elbaum was an American photojournalist, killed in Chechnya.Cynthia Elbaum, who grew up in Ashfield, Massachusetts, graduated from Smith College with a major in Russian studies...

. On assignment for Time magazine (USA), Cynthia was photographing in the streets of Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...

, when she was killed in a Russian bombing raid in 1994.
Vladimir Zhitarenko
Vladimir Zhitarenko
Colonel Vladimir Zhitarenko was a military correspondent for the Russian armed forces daily Krasnaya Zvezda ....

, a veteran military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

correspondent
Correspondent
A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...

for the Russian armed forces daily Krasnaya Zvezda
Krasnaya Zvezda
Krasnaya Zvezda is an official newspaper of Soviet and later Russian Ministry of Defence. It was founded on January 1, 1924. Today its official designation is "Central Organ of the Russian Ministry of Defence."...

(Red Star), was hit by two sniper bullets outside the town of Tolstoy-Yurt, near the Chechen capital of Grozny on 31 December 1994.
Nina Yefimova
Nina Yefimova
Nina Yefimova was a reporter for Vozrozhdeniye , a local Russian language newspaper in the Chechen capital Grozny. She was the 18th journalist to be killed in Chechnya since fighting escalated in December 1994....

, a reporter for the new Vozrozhdenie (Revival) newspaper was abducted from her apartment and killed together with her mother. Journalists in Grozny and Moscow believe that her murder was related to stories she had published on crime in Chechnya.
Jochen Piest
Jochen Piest
Jochen Piest was a correspondent for the German newsmagazine Stern.On January 10, 1995, Piest was killed in a suicide attack by a Chechen rebel against a Russian mine-clearing unit in the village of Chervlyonna, about 24 kilometers northeast of the Chechen capital, Grozny...

. On 10 January 1995 Piest, a correspondent with Stern magazine (Germany), was killed in an attack by a Chechen rebel against a Russian mine-clearing unit in Chervlyonna, a village 24 kilometers northeast of Grozny. Rossiskaya Gazeta correspondent Vladimir Sorokin was wounded in the attack; Piest was fatally hit by three bullets.
Farkhad Kerimov. Farkhad Kerimov was murdered on 22 May 1995 while filming for Associated Press behind rebel lines in Chechnya. No motive has ever been established for the killing.
Natalya Alyakina. Natalya Alyakina, a free-lance correspondent for German news outlets, was shot dead in June by a soldier after clearing a Russian checkpoint near the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk.
Shamkhan Kagirov. Kagirov, a reporter for the Moscow daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta and the local Vozrozhenie newspaper, was shot and killed in an ambush in Chechnya. Kagirov and three local police officers were traveling in a car near Grozny when they were attacked. The three officers were also killed.
Viktor Pimenov
Viktor Pimenov
Viktor Pimenov was a cameraman for Vaynakh Television, a Chechen station supported by Moscow-backed forces.-Death:On March 11, 1996, he was fatally shot in the back by a sniper positioned on the roof of a 16-story building in Grozny, the Chechen capital. Pimenov had been filming the devastation...

. On 11 March 1996, Pimenov, a cameraman with the local "Vainakh" TV company was fatally shot in the back by a sniper positioned on the roof of a 16-story building in Grozny. Pimenov had been filming the devastation caused to the Chechen capital by the March 6–9 rebel raid on the city.
Nadezhda Chaikova
Nadezhda Chaikova
Nadezhda Chaikova was a correspondent for the Russian weekly Obshchaya Gazeta. A college of Anna Politkovskaya, she had traveled frequently to Chechnya and neighbouring regions...

. On 20 March 1996 Chaikova, correspondent for the Obshchaya gazeta (Moscow) weekly newspaper disappeared while on assignment. Her body was found buried in the Chechen village of Gekhi on 11 April, blindfolded and bearing signs of mistreatment. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the back of the head. The identity of her executioners remains disputed. According to documents from Dudaev's
Dzhokhar Dudaev
Dzhokhar Musayevich Dudayev was a Soviet Air Force general and a Chechen leader, the first President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, a breakaway state in the North Caucasus.-Early life and military career:...

archive, that came into hands of Russian special services in 2002, she was killed by people from so called "Department of state security of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria" . At the time there were strong suspicions that Russian security services were involved.

September 1996 to October 1999

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.

Journalist Supyan Ependiyev. On the evening of 27 October 1999, several short-range ballistic missile hit a crowded outdoor market in central Grozny, killing or wounding hundreds of people. About an hour after the attack, Ependiyev went to the scene to cover the carnage for his paper. As he was leaving the site, a new round of rockets fell about 200 meters from the bazaar. Ependiyev suffered severe shrapnel wounds and died in a Grozny hospital the next morning. According to other sources, he died two days later.
Cameramen Ramzan Mezhidov
Ramzan Mezhidov
Ramzan Mezhidov , was a freelance Chechen cameraman. On October 29, 1999, together with Shamil Gigayev, a cameraman for independent Nokh Cho television station in Grozny, he was killed during a Russian air strike on refugees fleeing Chechnya....

and Shamil Gigayev. The journalists were part of a civilian convoy, including Red Cross workers and vehicles, attempting to leave Chechnya on 29 October 1999. Turned back at the republic's eastern border, they were travelling along the highway from Grozny to Nazran in neighboring Ingushetia when their vehicles came under attack. As the convoy approached Shami-Yurt, a Russian fighter fired several time from the air, hitting a busload of refugees. Mezhidov and Gigayev left their vehicle to film the carnage. As they approached the bus, another Russian rocket hit a nearby truck, fatally wounding both journalists.
Photojournalist Vladimir Yatsina, an ITAR-TASS staff member freelancing on his only trip to Chechnya, was kidnapped and killed there by a group of Wahhabis on 19 July 1999.
Antonio Russo, an Italian freelance journalist was killed on 16 October 2000 in Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

. His body was found near a Russian army base. He had come to the Georgian capital to document the Chechnya conflict as a Radio Radicale
Radio Radicale
Radio Radicale is the official radio station of Partito Radicale in Italy.It was founded in the seventies, along with the "Radio libere"....

reporter, working for a radio station belonging to the Italian Radical Party (Partito Radicale
Partito Radicale
The Radical Party was a political party in Italy. For decades it was a bastion of liberalism and radicalism in Italy and proposed itself as the strongest opposition to the Italian political establishment, which was seen as corrupt and conservative...

). His body carried injuries caused by torture, probably from military techniques. None of the tapes, articles and writings left in his Georgian apartment have been found.
Aleksandr Yefremov. A photojournalist of the western Siberian newspaper Nashe Vremya was killed in Chechnya when rebels blew up a military jeep in which he was riding. On previous assignments, Yefremov had won acclaim for his news photographs from the war-torn region.
Cameraman and editor Roddy Scott
Roddy Scott
Roddy Scott was a British freelance cameraman who documented neglected conflicts in such places as Sierra Leone, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. He derived the bulk of his income from updating a guide to war and traveled widely in his freelance journalism, usually career without sponsors or...

. On 26 September 2002, Scott was killed in Ingushetia. Russian soldiers found his body in the republic's Galashki region, near the border with Chechnya, following a bloody battle between Russian forces and a group of Chechen fighters.
Former teacher and TV journalist Natalia Estemirova, now an award-winning Russian human rights activist, board member of the Russian NGO Memorial
Memorial (society)
Memorial is an international historical and civil rights society that operates in a number of post-Soviet states. It focuses on recording and publicising the Soviet Union's totalitarian past, but also monitors human rights in post-Soviet states....

, and author for Novaya gazeta was murdered on 15 July 2009. Estemirova was abducted around 8.30 am from outside her home in Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...

, Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...

as she was working on "extremely sensitive" cases of human rights abuses in Chechnya. Two witnesses reportedly saw Estemirova being pushed into a car, shouting that she was being abducted. She was found with bullet wounds in the head and chest at 4.30 pm in woodland 100 m (328 ft) away from the "Kavkaz" federal highway near the village of Gazi-Yurt, Ingushetia
Ingushetia
The Republic of Ingushetia is a federal subject of Russia , located in the North Caucasus region with its capital at Magas. In terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's federal subjects except for the two federal cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg...

.
On 1 August Malika Betiyeva was killed on the Grozny-Shatoi highway. The deputy chief editor of "Molodyozhnaya smena", and Chechnya correspondent of the "Dosh" (Word) magazine, died with four of her immediate family in a car crash.

External links

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