In the news...Commander in Chief of the Russian airborne troops orders special forces units to hinder a police investigation into his private affairs.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and particularly Boris Yeltsin’s tipsy years in power, Russia’s young government has been trying to rough-hew the country’s tattered international image. The project may as well have been entitled ‘Keeping Up Appearances’, for the words ‘lawlessness’ and ‘impunity’ are still prevalent in Russia’s discourse. While President Medvedev’s smiling eyes may have lured part of the audience into a false sense of well-being and security, the events off camera leave one shuddering at the state of play. On September 21, 2009 it became public knowledge that the commander in chief of the Russian elite airborne troops, Lieutenant General Vladimir Shamanov, had ordered two paratrooper squads to interfere in an active police investigation for personal reasons.
Novaya Gazeta - Russia’s leading investigative newspaper, which lost four journalists to political assassinations since 2001 (including, famously, Anna Politkovskya) - published the complete audio files of phone conversations from August 18, 2009 between the general and a group of his subordinates in which he ordered two special forces units to dispatch to the Moscow factory of his son-in-law to prevent a police detective from entering the premises. The communications are full of urgency and impatience on the general’s behalf and - to their credit - nervousness and tension from his subordinates, spiced with outrageous swearing on both sides. It makes for an obscene soundtrack to Russia's injustice system.
What adds extra salt to the story is the fact that this was not just an ill-judged misdemeanour but a grave obstruction of justice. Alexei Hramushin, the young man in question, has been a member of a Moscow mafia ring and has recently become a fugitive wanted internationally for conspiracy to murder of a former business partner. When Gen. Shamanov found out that police investigators were headed towards Hramushin’s offices, he did what every family man would do - he placed a phone call. Clearly, the fact that being under oath to his country surpasses all other affiliations did not cross the good man’s mind when he shouted the ‘Fuck, go ahead!’ command.
Overriding federal law might seem a small offence to a man who has disregarded much more reputable parameters of international jurisdiction. In 2005, the European Court for Human Rights convicted the former commander of the Russian federal forces in Chechnya for the ‘massive use of indiscriminate weapons’. In 1999 Gen. Shamanov ordered heavy bombing of the Katyr-Yurt village, which was being used as a ‘safe zone’ for refugees without either warning or allowing for an exit route for civilians. His order to prevent refugees from leaving zones of conflict has been infamously disobeyed by other commanders in the region. Allegations of Shamanov’s troops both carrying out extra-judicial killings and failing to prevent them are also abundant. A close personal friend of the General - Colonel Yuri Budanov - was the first high-ranking Russian officer to be convicted for a brutal murder of a Chechen girl. Shamanov protested against all allegations and is suspected to have been instrumental - as Governor of the region where the trial was held - in Budanov’s premature release after only 8.5 years in prison. For all these extraordinary achievements, Gen. Shamanov was awarded the Hero of Russia - the country’s most honoured medal.
As if becoming Chechnya’s very own bogeyman was not enough Shamanov, as head of Ministry of Defence’s combat training command, made headlines last year when he expressed the need for Russian soldiers to be prepared to fight for territorial acquisitions in the oil-rich Arctic. His public persona wavering from the inhuman to the grotesque, in May 2009 he was, nevertheless, named commander in chief of the airborne troops - the pride and glory of the Russian army - an equivalent to the US Marines. One only has to imagine what tricks Gen. Shamanov turned for the government during the controversial counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya, and what cards he holds against Russia’s Commander in Chief to get his alcohol-swollen, monosyllabic self appointed to this position.
It is superfluous to mention that Russian authorities have closed the investigation into the Shamanov’s war crimes allegations, ‘having found no evidence of a crime’. It hardly comes as a surprise that after two shorts weeks the Ministry of Defence investigation committee announced that all charges against Shamanov’s abuse of power will be dropped due to the lack of corpus dilecti - or constituent elements of offence. According to the committee, Shamanov recalled the operation after he realised he had made a mistake. Due to the information ban placed on this story, there is no confirmation that it was indeed the case or of what exactly happened at the factory when, and if, the swat teams arrived.
It has been just over a year since President Medvedev stressed the ‘particular importance on the fundamental role of the law,’ stating that Russia ‘must ensure true respect for the law and overcome the legal nihilism that is such a serious hindrance to modern development’ (Time, Jun. 04, 2009). In the meantime, Gen. Shamanov has been reprimanded and apologised, but still remains in office, clearly not embarrassing the image-conscious government enough to be replaced. After all, having war criminals present at conference tables is a long-standing political perk. Thus, foreign leaders will have the opportunity - on the next visit to Moscow - to shake hands with the devil.
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