Three more Russian journalists—including the amazing Orhan Dzhemal—were killed while investigating the Kremlin's private mercenary group, Wagner. ouest-france.fr/monde/centrafr…
I knew Orhan Dzhemal. He was a fearless, thorough reporter who knew his subject matter—the insurgencies of the North Caucasus—inside out. He was a consummate professional, and a generous colleague. What a loss.
Wagner, which has sent Russian mercenaries to Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, and CAR, is owned by Putin "chef," Evgeny Prigozhin. He also owns the Internet Research Agency, aka the Troll Factory. He was sanctioned by US Treasury in March 2018.
Wagner's mercenaries also staged a daring attack on U.S. special forces in Syria a couple months ago, and were obliterated. Moscow quickly brushed this under the rug.
In April, another Russian journalist who had been investigating Wagner fell from his window a day after he saw men in special forces uniforms casing his apartment. Today's killings bring the tally to 4 dead journalists.
Again, this is how Russian journalists tend to die: they get in the way of someone's business interests (Wagner has an oil deal in Syria). As this case shows, the most dangerous business interests, though, are the ones that overlap with Putin's geopolitical objections.
*objectives.
_apologies for the typo_
_apologies for the typo_
