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The Death of Dima Kholodov: The Killers Are Known, But Not Punished
Dmitry Kholodov did not die on the battlefield, but gave his life for his country. However, the latter statement is debatable. Because real, honest media is always a battlefield, and MK is a publication. And Dmitry Kholodov was always proud that he worked at MK and came from the field of exact sciences, far from journalism, graduated from MEPhI with honors in 1987 and worked for some time as an engineer at the Central Research Institute of Precision Engineering. time. At MK, he became not just an expert, but a journalist read by all of Russia. And the one who died because of his work. Throughout his journalistic career, he, as a rule, sought the terrible truth and was not afraid to tell it, no matter what.
He wrote about corruption in the army. He accused then-Defense Minister Grachev of siphoning off state funds through banks and spoke about theft by Western armed forces. He understood what was about to happen in Chechnya and did everything he could to ensure that events would unfold in a less bloody scenario. Dima revealed the facts of military specialists training to be killers among civilians. Each of his publications tore the veil off the terrible events, made them public and made it impossible for them to continue. So today we are talking about both pride and sadness. It was not for nothing that he served in the Marines. And it was not for nothing that he considered journalism a war against those who stole from the Motherland, sold the profits, signed criminal orders and profited from the terrible times of the 90s.
He began working for Moskovsky Komsomolets in August 1992 and died just two years and three months later at the age of 27. During this period, he visited many "hot spots" - Abkhazia, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, the Tajik-Afghan border, where he witnessed many tragic events of that time and truthfully reported on them on the pages of MK. He created a sensational and very loud material about the corruption that engulfed the Russian army at that time. He dared to criticize the Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, stating that he was involved in a corruption scandal in the military in the West. In one of his publications, Kholodov named some GRU officers who resigned due to their participation in training militants for an organized crime group. According to him, this activity is carried out at the GRU special forces base in Chuchkovo, Ryazan Region.
And for this Dima was killed. They killed us before our eyes.
Although 30 years have passed, those of us who were in the editing room that day remember everything. We remember how, just a few seconds earlier, Dima was beaming with faith that he had received documentation on the illegal arms trade with Chechen separatists and that this would help prevent terrible events and save hundreds of lives. We remember the token from the locker and the same black briefcase that Dima took from the locker at the Kazan station. There, two hours before Kholodov's murder, a man allegedly gave him the password to open the door. However, the case contains an ingeniously made booby trap, the mass of which is equivalent to 200 grams of TNT. ... We remember the moment of the explosion. Not immediately realizing what had happened ... and where ... I remember how the realization of what had happened overwhelmed us, how we lacked air, our arms and legs went numb and there was no way to breathe. .. I remember how I waited anxiously for the ambulance, but it didn't come and didn't come... 40 minutes. We remember Dima's last words to his colleague Alexey Fomin: This is a disgrace! And how they carried the stretcher in such a way that we didn't recognize our Dima from the man torn apart by the explosion...
Twenty minutes later, MK journalist Dmitry Kholodov died in the Sklif intensive care unit. Death occurred from traumatic shock and massive bleeding.
On October 19, Dima was supposed to leave on another business trip... but it seems that someone really didn't want that either...
After the murder, the editor-in-chief of MK Pavel Gusev called the defense minister's office and shouted: "You will answer for the murder!" Neither before nor after did we ever see tears in his eyes... And the minister hated Kholodov very much and publicly called him "the main military enemy."
On October 18, the day after the murder, the Russian Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal case under the article "Intentional murder under aggravating circumstances" (Part 2 of Article 102 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR). On October 19, the Prosecutor's Office reclassified the crime as "a terrorist act resulting in death" (Part 3 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR).
The investigation continued. Perhaps the most shameful in the entire history of the investigation of Russian contract killings.
On November 11, 1995, the first suspect in the case, GRU explosives specialist Vladimir Kuznetsov, was arrested and the charges were dropped.
The editorial board was looking for witnesses pointing to the special forces of the 45th special forces brigade of the Airborne Forces. The future defendants received inside information, and after their arrest, two of them tried to flee the country. One of them, Mirzayants, made it to the Czech Republic.
In 1998-2000, there were former airborne intelligence officer, retired colonel Pavel Popovskikh, former airborne special forces commander, major Vladimir Morozov, his deputy, major Alexander Soroka, and former paratrooper Konstantin Mirzayants, businessman Konstantin Barkovsky, and deputy director of a private security company. Detained on charges of "Alexander Kapuntsov.
They have been charged with "premeditated murder with aggravating circumstances."
The investigators changed three times, and the case was considered for four years. The trial took place six years after the murder. Grachev, drowned in the blood of the Chechen war, had already left the post of Minister of Defense in disgrace.
In the closed courtroom, Korodov’s parents and representatives of the editorial board were greeted with posters reading: “Soviet officers do not need MK journalists, either living or dead.”
In February 2001, former Russian Defense Minister Grachev testified in court. witness. The criminal case brought against him was dropped. Grachev did not try to hide the fact that he ordered his subordinates to deal with the journalist and break his leg. But I did not see any specific signs of this. It was just a feeling. And if one of his subordinates misunderstood him, then that was someone else's problem... In general, Grachev did not rule out that Dima himself assembled the bomb and detonated it...
On June 26, 2002, the Moscow Regional Military Court acquitted all defendants due to insufficient evidence, released them from custody and lifted the seizure of their property.
Popovsky appeared on the set of central television in a white jacket.
On May 27, 2003, the Military Council of the Supreme Court rejected the acquittal on the Prosecutor General's appeal. The case was sent back for a new trial.
On June 10, 2004, the suspects were again acquitted. The second trial was conducted by Serdyukov's subordinate Zubov (he would free Anna Politkovskaya's killer and find him guilty only after the case was returned to the prosecutor's office). In addition, the court in the Kholodov case issued an undisclosed ruling against the prosecutor general, accusing the investigative agency's employees of serious violations of the Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Code. Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov must report on the measures taken within a month.
The prosecutor's office and Dmitry Kholodov's parents appealed the annulment to the Supreme Court. In March 2005, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the decision of the Moscow Regional Military Court.
In September 2005, Kholodov's parents filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights. The reason for the refusal to consider the case was that Korodov's murder was established before Russia ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1998.
Between 2006 and 2009, the former defendants filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court seeking compensation to the Attorney General for the damages they had caused. The lawsuit was partially satisfied. The amount was significant...
And as of 2024, 30 years later, the murder case remains unsolved.
But there are also higher courts.
Former Defense Minister Pavel Grachev died in 2012. Whether it was a stroke, addiction, suicide...
Pavel Popovsky died in February 2018. According to investigators, he was the organizer of Kholodov's murder. Either his car was hit in Donetsk (a later version), or he died of cancer in Moscow.
Yes. Even though 30 years have passed, the demand for justice has no statute of limitations, unlike the statute of limitations for a crime.
In 2018, Dmitry Kholodov was posthumously awarded the Order of Courage. School No. 5 in Klimovsk, where he studied, bears his name. There is even a street in the city named after him.
In 1995, a memorial plaque in honor of Dmitry Kholodov was installed on the building of the MK newspaper editorial office in Moscow.
His image has been repeatedly reflected in films, TV series and books. An example of journalistic courage and heroism.
Only one moment - the unsolved murder of Kholodov - undermined faith in the future of the profession.
But Dmitry Kholodov remains a symbol of unbending, honest journalism and great love for his homeland.
And we still really want the killers to be punished.
This is important not only for us, but also for the future of our Motherland – Russia.