Thread by @bellingcat

An investigation by Bellingcat, @the_ins_ru and #BBCEyeInvestigations has found that in the months before he was shot dead, Russian politician Boris Nemtsov was followed by members of the same FSB squad that tailed @navalny and other opposition figures bellingcat.com/news/2022/03/2…

@the_ins_ru @navalny Nemtsov was once the man many thought would succeed Boris Yeltsin before Vladimir Putin was appointed acting president of Russia in December 1999.

@the_ins_ru @navalny Nemtsov was shot dead in Moscow in February 2015. Zaur Dadayev, a former Chechen security officer, was convicted of the murder by a Russian military court. nbcnews.com/news/world/bor…

@the_ins_ru @navalny Despite an initial confession in pre-trial proceedings that he subsequently said was made under duress, Dadayev has maintained that he and five other Chechens tailed Nemtsov for months but did not commit the murder.

@the_ins_ru @navalny Neither the official investigation nor trial established why Nemtsov had been killed, nor who may have ordered the assassination. Much, it seems, remains unclear about the murder.

@the_ins_ru @navalny But what can now be demonstrated is that long before the Chechen group came to Moscow to surveil Nemtsov, he had been watched for months by members of a specialised FSB unit.

@the_ins_ru @navalny Members of this same unit were subsequently implicated in the plot to follow and poison @Navalny. They also tailed opposition figure Vladamir Kara-Murza and poet Dmitry Bykov before they fell suspiciously ill with poison-like symptoms bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

@the_ins_ru @navalny Travel data obtained by Bellingcat shows that Nemtsov was followed on 13 return journeys by FSB officer Valery Sukharev. Two other officers were also involved in the tailing between May 2014 and February 2015.

@the_ins_ru @navalny On the first two tailing trips Sukharev was accompanied by Dmitry Sukhinin, a newly-uncovered FSB operative.

@the_ins_ru @navalny On most of the following overlapping trips, Sukharev was accompanied by Alexey Krivoshchekov, another known FSB operative who was implicated in operations previously disclosed by Bellingcat.

@the_ins_ru @navalny There is no evidence that Sukharev, Krivoshchekov or Sukhinin were involved in Nemtsov’s murder. The method used to assassinate Nemtsov — shots from a pistol — also differs from the modus operandi later employed in targeting the likes of Navalny with poison.

@the_ins_ru @navalny While officers Sukharev and Krivoshchekov were involved in operations to tail @navalny, neither has chemical weapons expertise. Neither, it appears, does Sukhinin.

@the_ins_ru @navalny In the Navalny plot, chemical weapons experts from the FSB’s Criminalistics Institute joined FSB agents such as Sukharev & Krivoshchekov, who were from the Directorate for the Protection of Constitutional Order, after they had initiated tailing operations bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

@the_ins_ru @navalny A similar process could be observed in the apparent poisonings of @vkaramurza and Bykov. bellingcat.com/news/2021/06/0…

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza In the case of Nemtsov, it appears that he was never tailed by anyone from the Criminalistics Institute.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza The absence of chemical weapons experts on any of the tailing trips for Nemtsov may suggest that the intent was never to poison him, or that his routine identified during the tailing trips was unsuitable for such an operation.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza Phone records from this period are no longer accessible, and it is not possible to establish the FSB officers’ whereabouts on the day of the assassination, nor whether they were in communication with the group of convicted Chechens.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza Yet it is notable that the FSB squad stopped following Nemtsov on 17 February 2015, after an uninterrupted streak of 13 tailing trips. Nemtsov travelled to and from the city of Yaroslvavl seemingly without a tail on 21 and 22 February. Just one week later he was shot dead.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza Travel data also shows that when the FSB squad stopped tailing Nemtsov, they immediately started following his protégé, @vkaramurza. The first instance of a tail on Kara-Murza occurred on February 25, two days prior to Nemtsov’s murder bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-eu…

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza Kara-Murza would suffer medical emergencies in 2015 and 2017, both of which left him in a coma and with severe shutdown of his vital functions.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza He suspected he was poisoned in retaliation for his political activities. The Russian authorities declined to initiate criminal proceedings into either case.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza These new findings raise fresh questions about the circumstances around Boris Nemtsov’s death, including whether the convicted Chechens – in the event they were indeed the assassins – had acted independently of Russia’s security apparatus.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza New doubts also emerge about the impartiality of the official investigation.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza A large portion of the prosecution’s case relied upon DNA comparisons performed by the Criminalistics Institute — the same FSB department that collaborated with Nemtsov’s tailers in the poisoning operations against other opposition figures.

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza Read the Insider’s version of the story (in Russian) here: theins.ru/politika/249691

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza Read #BBCEyeInvestigations story here with accompanying documentary: bbc.co.uk/news/world-eur…

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza You can join our Twitter Space later today where @christogrozev will discuss this story: twitter.com/i/spaces/1gqxv…

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza @christogrozev Huge credit goes to all who worked on this project, including @christogrozev @Dobrokhotov @danielsilas @Yaolri @antoineschirer @YordanTsa @CPamment and many more

@the_ins_ru @navalny @vkaramurza @christogrozev @Dobrokhotov @danielsilas @Yaolri @antoineschirer @YordanTsa @CPamment Read the full Bellingcat article here: bellingcat.com/news/2022/03/2…