Hear the widow of the murdered regime critic: "Can be persecuted for things said"

Chechen critics of the regime take refuge in Europe, to protect their lives and their freedom of speech.

But instead, they are being hunted on European soil by deployed Russian torpedoes.

12 murders and attempted murders in the same number of years.

The attacks have taken place in countries such as Germany, Austria, France and Sweden and seem to be escalating - in 2020 alone, four attacks took place.

- You can be persecuted for things you have said, which may have just slipped out of you, says Manana Tsatieva.

Her husband Zelimchan Changoshvili was an outspoken critic of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and had survived a previous assassination attempt in 2015. In 2019, he was shot to death in Berlin.

The trial is ongoing right now.

With the help of passport registers, mobile data, documents from the Tax Agency in Russia and leaked photos, it has been revealed that the suspected killer was connected to the Russian intelligence service FSB.  

- What we see are not individual operations but structures for ongoing operations, says Christo Grozev, Russia expert at Bellingcat, who made the revelation together with the German newspaper Der Spiegel and Russian Insider.

FOI: “State Terror”

Assignment review has revealed new information about an assassination attempt in Gävle 2020 on the Chechen regime critic Tumso Abdurachmanov.

A secret report from a European intelligence service blames Russian President Vladimir Putin for this and other attacks on critics of regime in Europe.

The report describes how Russia and Chechnya have developed their ability to carry out extrajudicial executions.

Tasks that are also supported by Swedish experts such as Fredrik Westerlund, security policy expert at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, FOI.

- I think it's intelligence services.

To carry out assassinations, especially in foreign territory, special education, special training and special resources are needed.

This is what is gathered in intelligence services.  

You call it state terror?

- Yes, I think that on good grounds one can talk about state terror because it is there to scare people into political inactivity.

In an email, signed "President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin", his spokesman responds to the Mission Review: "We really have nothing to do with these murders of people in European countries."