PUTIN REACTS TO POLITKOVSKAYA ASSASSINATION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 011490 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2016 TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM PREL RS SUBJECT: PUTIN REACTS TO POLITKOVSKAYA ASSASSINATION REF: MOSCOW 11313 Classified By: Charge Daniel A. Russell. Reasons: 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) President Putin, three days after the murder of outspoken investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, issued his definitive public statement that everything would be done to find the killers and bring them to trial. Russia's Prosecutor General, in fact, has already assumed charge of the investigation. The same Putin statement, however, downplayed Politkovskaya's influence, calling it politically insignificant. Human rights activists and liberals have criticized the slowness of Putin's public reaction to Politkovskaya's killing and his characterization of her work. The real test of Putin's commitment will be the vigor of the investigation and the results it produces. End Summary. -------------- What Putin Said -------------- ¶2. (U) In the wake of the October 7 assassination of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, (reftel), President Putin has made two statements that have been reported in the media. One stemmed from an October 9 telephone conversation with President Bush, where Putin assured the President that Russian law enforcement "would take all necessary measures for the objective investigation of the tragic death...". The second set of comments was made in Dresden during a press conference with Chancellor Merkel and in an October 10 interview with the Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). As transcribed in Russian on the presidential administration website, the SZ interview excerpt reads: Begin informal translation: "First of all, I would like to say that the murder of a person is considered a very serious crime, both by society and by God. The criminals must be found and stand trial. Unfortunately, this is not the only such crime in Russia. And we are going to do everything so that the criminals are identified. As far as the political side of this matter is concerned, the investigation is examining all possible motives. And of course one of those, one of the main ones, is the (nature of the ) professional activities of the journalist. She was a critic of the powers-that-be, like all members of the press, but she was quite radical. She had recently concentrated her attention on criticizing officials in Chechnya. I must say that her political influence (I think experts will agree with me) was insignificant in Russia and, she was probably better known in human rights circles and among the western mass media. In that regard I think --as one of our newspapers today correctly pointed out --that the murder of Politkovskaya did greater damage to the current powers-that-be and especially to the administration of Chechnya than her publications. In any event, I repeat that it is absolutely unacceptable. This horrible crime is damaging to Russia and must be solved. It is damaging both morally and politically. It is damaging to the political system which we are building, in which there must be a place for all people whatever their views; on the contrary they must be given the possibility to --unhindered-- to express their views in the mass media. As you know, several years ago an American journalist of Russian background Paul Khlebnikov was murdered in Russia. He also was involved in Chechnya and wrote a book, which he called "Conversation with a Barbarian." According to the investigation, the main characters of the book were not pleased with the way that Khlebnikov portrayed them, and they destroyed him." End informal translation. ¶3. (U) In response to a follow-up question, Putin emphatically rejected speculation that Chechnya's Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov was responsible for Politkovskaya's murder. Politkovskaya's reporting had not harmed Kadyrov's political activities and had not hindered the development of his political career, Putin said and, in concluding his answer, asserted: "I cannot imagine that a government official could have dreamed up such a serious crime." -------------- Timing -------------- MOSCOW 00011490 002 OF 002 ¶4. (C) Many commentators have noted -- citing as examples the Kursk submarine disaster and the recent assassination of banker Andrey Kozlov -- that the time lag before the President comments is standard operating procedure in the Putin administration. When quicker off the mark -- mentioned are Putin's congratulatory telephone calls in the wake of the contested December 2004 elections in Ukraine and a call to Yabloko's Grigoriy Yavlinskiy congratulating him on what later turned out to be unrealistically high election returns -- the comments have occasionally proved embarrassing. Gorbachev Foundation's Valeriy Solovey did not impute anything political or personal to the delayed reaction. Standard operating procedure, combined with Putin's misreading of the intensity of international reaction, caused the Kremlin to stumble. ¶5. (C) In contrast to the Presidential Administration, the Kremlin's United Russia (YR) political party on October 8 posted statements of condolence by General Council Presidium member Andrey Isayev, General Council member Valeriy Komissarov, and faction member Aleksandr Lebedev. Lebedev may have been responsible for the alacrity with which the statements were posted. He is co-owner of the newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, where Politkovskaya had worked since 1999 -------------- Content -------------- ¶6. (U) Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov in an October 10 interview told Radio Svoboda that he was disturbed that Putin made his statements only "under pressure from the West." The fact that Putin termed Politikovskaya's journalistic contributions insignificant, Ryzhkov said, meant that "for our head of state, freedom of the press...is not a serious theme and is not an important problem." Leader of the human rights organization "For the Peoples' Rights" Lev Ponomarev termed Putin's comments "inhuman" and the President's several day silence before making them "incomprehensible." ¶7. (C) Aleksey Simonov of the Foundation for the Defense of Glasnost described the SZ interview to Embassy as "not Putin's best moment. He had a very ordinary reaction to an extraordinary situation." Simonov, noted that channel One had reported that only 500 people attended Politkovskaya's funeral when in fact "thousands were there," and suggested that the media were attempting to support Putin's contention that Politkovskaya's political influence was insignificant. Per Simonov, other politicians had gotten Putin's message. He noted that Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov had sent his press secretary to the funeral. The only chief newspaper editor SIPDIS present at the grave was Novaya Gazeta's Dmitriy Muratov, Simonov said. ¶8. (C) Moscow Helsinki Group's Lyudmila Alekseyeva agreed with Putin's description of Politkovskaya's political influence was "insignificant," but termed that fact an indictment of the Russian regime, where journalists who "tell the truth have no influence on political life." ¶9. (C) IMEMO's Andrey Ryabov thought that Putin simply did not understand why Politkovskaya's assassination was significant, and was likely to see the European and U.S. reaction as "just another pretext to put pressure on Russia." Putin, Ryabov said, "lacks a feel for the necessary public gesture" in such situations, and does not respond appropriately. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) Whatever the reservations expressed about Putin's timing and the context of his comments, the President did in the end stress the importance of finding the instigators and bringing them to justice. While the Prosecutor General's immediate decision to take personal control of the investigation is an indication of the GOR's resolve, the real test will be how actively and thoroughly the authorities follow through on Putin's commitment to find and prosecute the killers. RUSSELL