On July 4, unknown assailants brutally beat up lawyer Alexander Nemov of the Team Against Torture and journalist Elena Milashina of Novaya Gazeta, who had arrived in Grozny for the announcement of the verdict of Zarema Musayeva. The attackers demanded that they not come to the republic again and threatened to kill them. The crime caused a stir not only in human rights circles, but also among officials in Moscow. A criminal case was opened on the fact of obstruction of the journalist's professional activities and violent actions in connection with the administration of justice, but the perpetrators were never found.

"Stay in your Russia"

As the victims themselves said, they arrived in Grozny early in the morning, took a taxi and went to court. Not far from the airport, their car was blocked and stopped by three cars, 10-12 people in black with their faces covered with scarves got out of them, pulled the taxi driver out of the car, got in and started beating the passengers. Then they took them to some ravine and started demanding passwords for their phones and laptops, beating them with polypropylene truncheons and threatening to kill them. Milashina's fingers were badly damaged (fortunately, the initial diagnosis of "fractured fingers" was later, during an examination in Moscow, not confirmed), her head was shaved and she was doused with brilliant green. Nemov was stabbed in the leg, a gun was put to his head and they demanded that he beg for mercy. "Stop writing about us. Stop coming here. We beat you last time, you didn't understand. Don't come here anymore, next time we'll kill you," they told the journalist. They told the lawyer: "There is no one to protect here, stay in your Russia, and protect whoever you want there." According to the victims, the unknown attackers spoke Chechen to each other. As they said goodbye, they tore up the lawyer's documents, took all of their victims' electronics, and left. They were unable to unlock the phones. The taxi driver took the beaten passengers to the hospital, where they were given first aid and sent to Ossetia, from where they were flown to Moscow on a charter flight that evening.

"The signature of Western intelligence agencies"
A few hours later, the entire country knew about the incident. The presidential press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said that Vladimir Putin had been informed of the attack and noted that it "requires vigorous measures." The Russian Human Rights Commissioner, Tatyana Moskalkova, contacted the Chechen law enforcement agencies. The head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed the head of the agency's Chechen department to conduct an investigation and submit a report. The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, wrote on his Telegram channel: “We will look into this. I have instructed the competent services to make every effort to establish the identity of the attackers. The agencies began working immediately after the incident was reported.”
According to Milashina, a police officer came to them at the Grozny hospital immediately after the incident, but they did not talk to him, since they did not see the point in it.
Considering the threats that Milashina and the entire editorial staff of Novaya Gazeta received from Kadyrov, and the previous attacks, when human rights activists were beaten, doused with green paint, and their offices were smashed, many are sure that the Chechen authorities are behind the crime. However, the Minister of National Policy, External Relations, Press and Information of the Republic, Akhmed Dudayev, saw in the attack “the signature of Western intelligence services.” "Of course, the first thing that comes to mind is the motive for inflating the trial of citizen Musayeva, to which, judging by their words, Milashina and Nemov were going. However, in view of the global processes taking place against the backdrop of a special military operation, it cannot be ruled out that the authors of the attack scenario were pursuing the goal of yet another discrediting of our country before the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius. The characteristic handwriting of Western intelligence agencies is clearly visible here," he wrote on social networks.

Elusive "avengers"

On July 5, the Investigative Committee announced the initiation of a criminal case under the articles on intentional infliction of harm to health (Articles 112 and 115 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Later, the first department for the investigation of especially important cases of the Investigative Department of Chechnya expanded the qualification of the case, adding articles: illegal deprivation of liberty (Article 127 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), obstruction of the lawful professional activities of journalists (Article 144), robbery committed by a group of persons with the use of weapons (Article 162), threat of murder against a defense attorney (Article 296), kidnapping, destruction of official documents (Article 325).
Thus, the lawyers note, the fact that Nemov and Milashina were attacked because of their professional activities has been officially recognized. Moreover, the case materials contain testimony from Elena Milashina about the threats she received from Ramzan Kadyrov and representatives of the Chechen security forces. For example, Kadyrov said about her in 2020: “Hey, gentlemen from the Federal Security Service... stop these monsters who write, provoke my people... I’ve had enough! If you want us to commit a crime and become criminals, then say so! One will take on this burden of responsibility and be punished by law. He will sit in prison and get out!..” These public threats against Milashina were made after the resonant investigations of Novaya Gazeta about the kidnapping and torture of dissidents in Chechnya.
That is why neither Milashina nor Nemov have any illusions about the results of the investigation.
“If you want, you can find these people with just a snap of two fingers,” Elena Milashina is sure. “Their faces were recorded by cameras - the city, like the airport, is literally stuffed with cameras. And they can also be tracked by roaming and by cars. This is early morning, when all telephone conversations are very easy to figure out. Who they talked to, who gave them instructions to get passwords for iPhones from us - all this was recorded by towers, all this can be established literally in an hour and this entire gang can be closed down, be they Western intelligence services or some other provocateurs. But if this is a systemic situation, then, of course, neither video cameras, nor roaming - nothing will help. According to official statistics, Grozny is our safest, the best city for tourism, the center of the world, the center of security. The Chechen government wants to make Chechnya attractive to tourists, and at the same time, situations regularly occur there when people who are not very popular with the Chechen leadership are attacked, and the cameras do not work." "Chechen Snowden": Elena Milashina's version
Without hoping for the effectiveness of the official investigation, the editorial board of Novaya conducted its own investigation, the first results of which Milashina reported on August 3 in the article "Chechen Edward Snowden".
The journalist suggested that the attack was not organized with the aim of intimidating the press and human rights activists and not in retaliation for their activities in Chechnya, but to steal phones and laptops in which the kidnappers were looking for certain information that was "leaked" by former employee of the Russian National Guard in Chechnya Yasin Khalidov.
As Elena Milashina said, Khalidov began working in the police as a teenager - he was hired there by colleagues of his father, who died of cancer. The guy did not even finish school and barely speaks Russian. Having started his career as a security guard at a checkpoint, he then transferred to the transport police and closely collaborated with the Center for Combating Extremism. Returning from Ukraine, where he took part in the "SVO", Khalidov decided to quit, but his superiors did not let him go. Then the 19-year-old Rosgvardiya turned to Ibragim and Baysangur Yangulbaev, hosts of the opposition TG channel 1ADAT, with a request to organize his trip abroad. They promised help in exchange for information about the activities of the Center for Extremism, but they deceived him. Having received a huge amount of sensational data from Khalidov, they did not help him in any way and simply stopped answering his calls. Moreover, they published part of the information transferred and, although they did not name the source, it was not difficult for Khalidov's colleagues to figure it out. In May, he was detained in the Omsk region while trying to cross the Kazakh border, handed over to Chechen security forces and disappeared. In response to accusations that they had set up their informant, the Yangulbaevs bloggers responded that he was a criminal and "if Kadyrov's men kill a Kadyrovite, then that's what he deserves." Elena Milashina suggests that the people who attacked her and Nemov are the same ones who "lost" Khalidov, and that they were looking for information about those with whom he had been in contact in her phone and laptop.