Forty-eight-year-old Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was at the Ramstor Department Store in Moscow on October 7, 2006. In addition to the usual products, she also bought special foods for her daughter Vera, who was pregnant with her first child. But...
She is famous for being against Putin's war against the Chechens, describing it as a Dirty War, and for publishing a book of the same name. She was frequently criticized for these views. She was poisoned on the plane on the way to the Beslan School raid, was tried to kill her several times, and was found dead in the elevator of her house on October 7, 2006.
Famous human rights defender Stanislav Markelov was the lawyer of the incident, and intelligence officer Aleksandr Litvinenko was one of those who blamed Politkovskaya's death the most.
Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya (30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006) was a Russian journalist and human rights activist, who reported on political and social events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War (1999–2005).
The writer, who worked for the Novaya newspaper, was constantly criticized by the Russian government and security units for being pro-Chechen.
Edward Snowden claimed that the Federal Security Service was behind her death.
The life and murder of Anna Politkovskaya, who is considered one of Russia's most important journalists, will be made into a movie by Australian Luminosity Entertainment.
The film, whose name will be "Mother Russia", will be directed by British director James Strong, known for "Broadchurch".
Politkovskaya became a world-renowned journalist for revealing human rights violations committed during the Second Chechen War. The Russian journalist closely followed Vladimir Putin's first years in the Kremlin and wrote the book "Putin's Russia". The journalist, who received numerous death threats due to her news, was killed at the entrance of her Moscow apartment in October 2006. It could not be revealed by whom and on whose orders the murder was committed.
BAFTA winner Maxine Peake will portray Politkovskaya in the film. Ciaran Hinds will play Dmitri Muratov, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Editor-in-Chief of Novaya Gazeta, where Politkovskaya works.
The story of that day
Anna and Vera had talked on the cell phone several times during the day. But Politkovskaya did not live to see the baby.
The images taken by hidden cameras in the shopping center revealed that Anna was not alone. A man dressed in jeans and a white turtleneck sweater and a blonde woman in black clothes were following her. They were part of a larger group that had been following her for several days. Around 15:30, she called her son Ilya, and said that she was coming home. But she never arrived. She was shot in the apartment space when she entered the building at approximately 16:00. Killer had learned the code needed to enter the building and disguised himself only with a baseball cap, minutes before the incident. Like other contract killers in Moscow, he left his gun and silencer at the scene.
Politkovskaya, a harsh critic of the Kremlin and Chechnya policy, knew her life was in danger. Swiss filmmaker Eric Bergkraut interviewed her several times while working on her documentary Coca: The Dove From Chechnya, about the conflict in Chechnya. Letter to Anna contains striking frames from the recordings taken during those interviews. In the first scene of her appearance in the documentary film, Anna says: "Why am I still alive? Seriously speaking, I think it's a miracle. It really is a miracle."
Politkovskaya worked for one of Russia's independent newspapers called Novaya Gazeta, where more than five hundred articles were published. Her father was a Soviet diplomat working at the UN, and Politkovskaya was an American citizen by birth. She received various awards and badges of honor, including the Oscars for Journalism and Democracy and the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. However, none of these were enough to protect her in Russia. She had previously received many death threats and survived an attempted murder.
Various journalists who disturbed the Kremlin lost their lives. Igor Domnikov, from the newspaper where Anna worked, was brutally shot and died a while later; Yury Shchekochikhin caught a mysterious disease and died. Apparently, she was poisoned. Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, wrote about corruption in Russia and Chechnya and published a list of Russia's richest people, some of whom were affected by this situation. Klebnikov died after being attacked outside his office in Moscow in July 2004. Exactly one month before Politkovskaya's murder, Andrei Kozlov, one of the deputy governors of the Central Bank of Russia and a leading figure in preventing money laundering, went to watch a match in Moscow and was killed on the way out.
Politkovskaya worked tirelessly to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations in Chechnya. In an article published in Novaya Gazeta in March 2000, she documented the rape and mass murders of a Russian unit. After the publication of her article mentioning the violations, Russian prosecutors opened an investigation. Although no one was prosecuted, the case was transferred to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the Russian government was held responsible for the crimes committed - but the Kremlin did not heed the court's decision.
In another news article published in September 2001, she stated that the number of Chechen civilians abducted by Russian forces was alarming. Russian soldiers will carry out a "cleaning" operation in the villages, arrest Chechen men, and most of them will never be heard from again. Politkovskaya described the situation as follows:
"Imagine a group of strangers in uniform burst into your house and take away your loved one. That's all. Once there was a man; now she suddenly disappeared. She has disappeared from life like a stick figure drawn on the blackboard at school. You get angry and crazy. A piece of information." "Those who need to investigate this situation advise you to forget it. The most terrible tragedy in Chechnya is that people disappear without a trace."
Politkovskaya was highly respected in Chechnya. When Chechen rebels took more than nine hundred people hostage in Moscow's Dubrovka Theater on October 23, 2002, they asked Politkovskaya to mediate through Novaya Gazeta. At the time of the incident, Politkovskaya was in California to accept the award presented to her for her success in journalism. In her book titled A Small Corner of Hell, she says that her son called her and tried to persuade her not to come to Moscow: "Please don't do this!" But she immediately flew to Moscow and entered the theater building on October 25 with the reluctant permission of the Russian authorities. In a later article she wrote about the incident, she said that efforts to persuade Chechen activists to release more hostages were futile. The guerrillas wanted an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya – nothing less – and the Russian government was never willing to accept this. They assured Politkovskaya that they were ready to die for their cause. Politkovskaya managed to get water and juice for the hostages and withdrew from the stage. Security forces released a very strong opium-like gas (used only for animals) into the theater building on the morning of October 26, killing 125 hostages, including most of the activists.
Another target of Politkovskaya was a notorious and corrupt Chechen young man named Ramazan Kadirov, who was placed in the Chechen government by Putin and the FSB after the assassination of his father Ahmed Kadirov, and who eventually became president in 2007 after reaching the age of 30 as required by law. According to Politkovskaya, Kadyrov's militia forces were brutally attacking the resistance, kidnapping, torturing, and killing hundreds of innocent civilians. Politkovskaya's interview with Ramazan Kadyrov in June 2004 ended badly. Her questions were quite probing, especially about his enemies, other Chechen commanders and resistance fighters. Surrounded by his bodyguards, Kadyrov became angry, accused Polikovskaya of being an enemy of the Chechens, and threatened: "I am not guilty. I will keep you here. I will not let you go." Shaken Politkovskaya: "I could no longer carry it. I stood up and started walking away. I burst into tears. Of course, I thought a bullet would be fired from behind."
At the end of her meeting with Ramazan Kadyrov, she came to the following conclusion: "The Kremlin has raised a little dragon. Now they have to feed it. Otherwise, he will burst into flames."
Politkovskaya was killed on October 7, Vladimir Putin's birthday. Putin did not say a word about the murder until October 10; When he set out to visit Germany, he told the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that the government would do everything necessary to bring those who organized the assassination to justice.
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Anna Politkovskaya: Is Journalism Worth A Life?
https://khodorkovsky.com/anna-politkovskaya-journalism-worth-ones-life/