Perspective: The Russia connectionThe CAR Murders: A Critical Cold Case in the New Cold War Points to “Putin’s Chef”
You may remember that about a year ago three Russian journalists and filmmakers were mysteriously murdered in the Central African Republic (CAR). The victims — Orkhan Dzhemal, Alexander Rastorguev, and Kirill Radchenko — had traveled to the CAR to make a documentary about the “Wagner Group,” a secretive private military contractor affiliated to Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s chef” because of his Kremlin catering contacts. The Russian official investigation blamed Islamic militants for the killing, and a news agency backed by Prigozhin blamed a French mercenary. An independent investigation has now found that Prigozhin’s own hit men killed the journalists. “Americans concerned about the ruthlessness of Moscow’s operations to subvert or dominate other countries should take note as evidence mounts that some of the central figures in the cyberattacks on the U.S. presidential election in 2016 may also be implicated in the Africa homicides,” Anna Nemtsova and Christopher Dickey write.
You may remember that about a year ago three Russian journalists and filmmakers were mysteriously murdered in the Central African Republic (CAR). The victims — Orkhan Dzhemal, Alexander Rastorguev, and Kirill Radchenko — had traveled to the CAR to make a documentary about the “Wagner Group,” a secretive private military contractor affiliated to Yevgeny Prigozhin, nicknamed “Putin’s chef” because of his Kremlin catering contacts.
Miriam Kiparoidze writes in Coda Story that investigations by CAR authorities and the Russian foreign ministry concluded the journalists had been ambushed by men wearing turbans and speaking Arabic. Another investigation by the Kremlin-aligned and Prigozhin-backed RIA FAN news agency claimed that a French mercenary, under the protection of French secret services, was behind the killings.
“However, despite these investigations, or because of them, the families of the victims, their colleagues, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled Russian billionaire and leading Putin critic who funded the journalists on their fatal assignment, have kept digging,” Kiparoidze writes.
An investigative report in the Daily Beast examines the most recent investigation into the murders, conducted by Dossier Center, an investigative unit funded by Khodorkovsky.
For the Dossier Center’s report, the investigating team has conducted new interviews, studied billing records, transportation and communications data and concluded that the journalists had been surveilled, set up, and “the murders were deliberate and professionally executed.” The report also says that a Prigozhin-backed disinformation campaign was then launched to impede any independent investigation. “The involvement of a number of Russian citizens, in particular, employees of companies affiliated with Yevgeny Prigozhin, is being concealed or denied,” concludes the report.
Anna Nemtsova and Christopher Dickey write in the Daily Beast that
Americans concerned about the ruthlessness of Moscow’s operations to subvert or dominate other countries should take note as evidence mounts that some of the central figures in the cyberattacks on the U.S. presidential election in 2016 may also be implicated in the Africa homicides.
