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).

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Summary
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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.

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What Putin Said
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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."

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Timing
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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

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Content
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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

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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.

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Comment
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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