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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 are always a battlefield, and MK is a publication. And Dmitry Kholodov was always proud that he worked for MK and came from the field of exact sciences, far from journalism. He 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 all over Russia. And the one who died because of his work. Throughout his journalistic career, he usually looked for the terrible truth and was not afraid to tell it, no matter what.
He wrote about corruption in the army. He accused the then Minister of Defense Grachev of embezzling 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 developed in a less bloody scenario. Dima revealed the facts of training military specialists to kill civilians. Each of his publications exposed the terrible events, made them public and made their continuation impossible. That is why today we talk about both pride and sadness. It was not for nothing that he served in the Marines. And it was not for nothing that he viewed journalism as a war against those who robbed 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 existed at that time in the Russian army. He dared to criticize the Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev and stated that he was involved in a military corruption scandal in the West. In one of his publications, Kholodov named some GRU officers who resigned due to their participation in the training of 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.
Even though 30 years have passed, those of us who were in the editing room that day remember it all. We remember how just a few seconds ago Dima was beaming with confidence that he had received documents 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 that same black briefcase that Dima took from the locker at the Kazansky railway station. There, two hours before Kholodov's murder, a man allegedly gave him the password to open the door. However, the suitcase contains a skillfully made booby trap, the mass of which is equivalent to 200 grams of TNT. ... We remember the moment of the explosion. I did not immediately understand what had happened ... and where ... I remember how stunned we were by the realization of what had happened, how we were out of breath, our arms and legs were numb, and we had no way to walk - we had to breathe. .. I remember how anxiously I waited for the ambulance, but it neither arrived nor left... 40 minutes. We remember Dima's last words to his colleague Alexey Fomin: This is a disgrace! And how they carried the stretcher so that we could not distinguish 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 as a result of traumatic shock and massive bleeding.
On October 19, Dima was supposed to go on another business trip... but apparently someone really didn't want that either...
After the murder, MK editor-in-chief Pavel Gusev called the defense minister's office and shouted: "You will answer for the murder!" We never saw tears in his eyes before or after... 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 event in the entire history of investigations into 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 who would point 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 tried to flee the country. One of them, Mirzayants, reached the Czech Republic.
In 1998-2000, these were former air reconnaissance colonel, reserve colonel Pavel Popovskikh, former commander of the Airborne Forces special forces major Vladimir Morozov, his deputy major Alexander Soroka and former paratrooper Konstantin Mirzayants, businessman Konstantin Barkovsky and deputy director of a private security company. He was imprisoned 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. A witness. The criminal case 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 and detonated the bomb...
On June 26, 2002, the Moscow Regional Military Court acquitted all defendants due to lack of evidence of a crime, released them from custody and cancelled the confiscation of property.
Popovsky appeared on central television in a white jacket.
On May 27, 2003, the Supreme Court's Military Council rejected the acquittal following protests from the Attorney General. 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 released Anna Politkovskaya's killer and found him guilty only after the case was returned to the prosecutor's office). In addition, the court issued an undisclosed verdict to the Prosecutor General in the Kholodov case, 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 reversal to the Supreme Court. In March 2005, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the Moscow Regional Military Court's decision.
In September 2005, Kholodov's parents filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights. The court rejected the claim because Korodov's murder had been 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 from the Attorney General for the damages they had caused. The claim was partially satisfied. The amount was significant...
And in 2024, 30 years later, the murder case is still unsolved.
But there are also higher courts.
Former Defense Minister Pavel Grachev died in 2012. Whether it was a stroke, drug addiction, suicide...
Pavel Popovsky died in February 2018. According to investigators, the organizer of the murder was Kholodov. 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 does not expire – unlike 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 achievements.
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.