49-year-old scientist-hydrologist, employee of the Institute of Biology of Inland Waters of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Tsvetkov was detained on February 16, 2023 at Domodedovo airport, when he was returning from Krasnoyarsk. The man was charged with the murder of two or more persons with particular cruelty and by prior conspiracy (Part 2 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). All the crimes were committed 20 years ago.
According to investigators, on August 2, 2002, Tsvetkov, together with an accomplice, killed a 54-year-old man in a private house in the Moscow suburban village of Voskresenskoye. The perpetrators dismembered the victim and tried to burn the remains in a furnace. On the same day, they stabbed a 64-year-old pensioner. And on August 10 in Moscow, attackers robbed and killed a 55-year-old woman and her 95-year-old mother.
"The entire accusation is based on the testimony of a repeatedly convicted person who was first accused of these murders. Now he assures that he did all this together with my husband, "Tsvetkov's wife Marina tells RT. - Claims that in August 2002 he regularly met with Alexander at the railway station in Moscow and they drank alcoholic beverages together and engaged in petty thefts. It's kind of fantastic. My husband is incapable of that. It's unrealistic. Even physically, he could not constantly travel to Moscow from Rybinsk - the institute very strictly monitors attendance on weekdays. Moreover, when these crimes were committed, Sasha was generally on a scientific expedition. My husband does not know this Andrei (the second accused. - RT), but for some reason they do not believe him. "
Tsvetkov was born and raised in Rybinsk. For more than 20 years, he and his wife and three daughters have been living in the village of Borok, which is the scientific center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Pinocchio's testimony
The second defendant, 40-year-old Andrei Aleshin, nicknamed Pinocchio, was detained and then arrested last fall. The case against him has now been separated into separate proceedings. According to RT, the man concluded a pre-trial agreement: in exchange for cooperation with the investigation, the court may reduce his sentence.
It was Aleshin's testimony, which RT reviewed, that formed the basis of the accusation against Tsvetkov.
According to the man, he was born in the moscow region and received his first conviction as a child - for robbery. In 2000, Aleshin was released from the colony for minors and moved to the capital - he spent the night at the Kursky railway station in the cars of long-distance trains that stood on spare tracks. He was engaged in thefts and random part-time jobs.
As Aleshin assures, in mid-July 2002, in the kitay-gorod district, he met a certain Sasha nicknamed Chuvash.
"He looks 25-26 years old, about 165-170 cm tall, of medium build, black hair, dark skin, sometimes wore glasses, spoke good Russian. Alexander had tattoos on his fingers in the form of rings, on his left hand there was a tattoo in the form of a Celtic pattern, "- this is how he described this person.
According to Aleshin's memoirs, he periodically met with Chuvash in Moscow, they drank together and traded in petty thefts. The man claims that it was Chuvash who was the main instigator of all four murders.
In his testimony, Aleshin detailed how on August 10, 2002, he met again with an accomplice on Komsomolskaya Square and he suggested that he rob someone. The choice fell on a woman who stood next to the station with a sign and offered to rent a room from her.
The men agreed with her on a lease and went to see the apartment, which was located on the Yaroslavl highway. According to the accused, upon arrival there, he and Chuvash first drank in the kitchen.
After that, Aleshin saw gold jewelry in the sideboard in the living room and began to put them in his pockets. At that moment, the 95-year-old mother of the landlady entered the room and began to scream. Aleshin strangled her with a belt from her purse, and Chuvash stabbed the second woman with a kitchen knife.
It is worth noting that in 2002, law enforcement officers checked Aleshin for involvement in this case, but released him due to lack of evidence.
In 2003, the man was sentenced to nine years for robbery. In 2011, he was caught in a series of thefts in the area near three railway stations. In total, Aleshin served more than 13 years. In his criminal piggy bank, according to sources, there is robbery, death threats and the sale of weapons. In the criminal world, he is known under the nicknames Pinocchio and Spartacus.
Last autumn, Aleshin was again detained: this time for the murder of women committed in 2002.
"I understand that this situation was approached formally in 2002. We looked at the explanations: they were, roughly speaking, taken in bad faith. Therefore, they decided to double-check the defendant. They found him, watched him a little and decided that he could be involved in the crime. And then they decided to detain him, "said Major-General Konstantin Stroganov, head of the Internal Affairs Department for the North-Eastern District, in an interview with the MK about the disclosure of the grouse 20 years ago.
During the investigation, Aleshin confessed to two more murders, which he committed together with an accomplice a week earlier, on August 2, 2002.
RT talked to Aleshin's former partner. According to her, they broke up six months before his detention, but the police also came to her with a search and asked if Aleshin had mentioned a certain Chuvash in conversations.
"I asked the operatives why they were taking up this case now. I was told there was an instruction from above. It is clear that none of his things were found in me: when I break up with a man, I part with him forever, "Nadezhda told RT.
Similarity to the photo robot
As RT found out, there are several more testimonies about Alexander Chuvash in the case.
So, Alexei S. (name changed. - RT) recalled that in the summer of 2002 they sometimes drank with Chuvash on the square near three railway stations.
"At that time he was 20-23 years old, thin build, short in stature, 170-172 cm, slightly stooped, dark skin, brown eyes, straight black hair, bangs combed on his side, a narrow incision in the eyes, wore glasses in a wide frame. He had no distinctive features, I did not see tattoos from him, "Aleksey told investigators. He also stated that Aleshin allegedly boasted of robbing and murdering two women on the Yaroslavl highway.
Another witness, David A. (not his real name), was 2002 years old in 15. He saw the defendants at the scene of one of the murders and, unlike other witnesses, remembered Chuvash as a person over 40 years old.
«... A man passed, he looks 40-45 years old, tall (not lower than 180 cm), thin build, blond hair below the earlobes, round-rimmed glasses with thick lenses, "- this is how David A. described the alleged criminal.
According to investigators, the accused scientist Alexander Tsvetkov is the same Chuvash.
According to a source close to the investigation, a video surveillance camera with a face-reading function showed similarities between the killer's sketch and Tsvetkov. The IC does not officially comment on this information. After that, the police showed the photo of the scientist to witnesses and the accused, and they recognized Chuvash in him. At the same time, only Aleshin participated in the face-to-face identification.
The RT source assures that Tsvetkov immediately after the arrest personally wrote a confession, and in the case there are other evidence indicating his involvement in the crime. However, the man then retracted his testimony, possibly fearing for his family, according to the source.
Disappeared tattoos
The defendant's lawyer David Afyan, in an interview with RT, told a completely different story. According to him, at first Tsvetkov was interrogated as a witness and he completely denied his involvement. Then the first face-to-face confrontation with Aleshin was held, at which the latter told the details of the murders.
"That is, there was a face-to-face confrontation before Alexander gave a confession. It was then that he learned the circumstances of the crimes," Afyan said.
The next day, Tsvetkov was interrogated in the presence of a lawyer appointed as a suspect and signed a confession.
"But in it, Tsvetkov claims that he does not remember how and on what he got from the Yaroslavl region to Moscow on August 1 and 10. He says that he allegedly came for a walk and accidentally met with Aleshin. He can't remember where or how they got to the crime scene. He clearly took the descriptions of the events from Aleshin's testimony, which was voiced at the face-to-face confrontation, "the lawyer says.
According to Afyan, who joined the case later, at the second confrontation Tsvetkov refused all confessions. Now he completely denies his involvement in the murders and acquaintance with Aleshin.
In an interview with a lawyer, the scientist said that he signed a confession because he was experiencing severe stress and by that time he had not slept for two days.
- Alexander Tsvetkov together with his daughters.
- © Photo from personal archive
Tsvetkov's lawyer by appointment, in whose presence he signed the confession, refused to comment to journalists, citing attorney-client privilege.
David Afyan filed a petition with the investigation to conduct an examination to establish whether Alexander Tsvetkov had tattoos on his hands: it is impossible to remove them without a trace from the skin.
"After all, Aleshin claims that Chuvash had tattoos on his fingers and a Celtic pattern on his left hand. It is worth paying attention to the fact that witnesses describe Chuvash in different ways: someone has it higher, someone lower, different eye cut, hair color. And the most important thing is that identification from a photograph is carried out if it is impossible to deliver a person for identification personally (for example, he is hiding or has died). In this case, the investigating authorities were well aware of where Alexander lives and works, "the lawyer explains.
Scientific expedition on the day of the murder
Afyan emphasizes that Tsvetkov has an alibi. At 16:00 on August 1, 2002, he returned from a scientific trip, and from August 5 to August 13, Alexander, together with five colleagues, was on an expedition - he explored small rivers of the Yaroslavl, Ivanovo and Kostroma regions. This is stated in the orders for the expedition, which is preserved in the archive of the institute (available to RT).
Candidate of Sciences, an employee of the institute Alexander Bobrov - the head of that expedition - provided the investigation with a film photograph in which Alexander Tsvetkov is standing with his colleagues against the background of the GAZ-66 expedition vehicle. On the back of the picture, Bobrov himself habitually wrote the time and place of shooting: "10.08.2002. Crossing Volgorechensk — Krasnoye".
We are talking about a ferry crossing across the Volga in the Kostroma region, Volgorechensk is located more than 350 km from the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow.
- A photograph from the expedition taken by a colleague of the accused. Alexander Tsvetkov is on the far left. On the back is the inscription: "10.08.2002. Crossing Volgorechensk — Krasnoye»
- © Photo from personal archive
"On such expeditions, we went from Borok and drove to points along the banks of the rivers, where we conducted research and surveying. At each such point we were from an hour to three, then we gathered and moved to the next one. Every day we made two or three such stops, that is, every day we moved and spent the night in a new place. The entire route was known to us in advance, "Bobrov tells RT. According to him, the investigators did not interview him.
The current director of the Institute of Inland Water Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Biological Sciences Alexander Krylov, claims that that expedition passed without an emergency.
"I remember that trip quite well, because in 2006 we published a book with its results. On such trips, you live as one family: everything is in plain sight," Krylov recalls.
Employees of the institute wrote an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a request to pay attention to the criminal case against Tsvetkov. Scientists believe that the man could not commit the cruel crimes of which he was accused.
Senior colleagues remember Alexander as a schoolboy, when he visited the local station of young people.
The director of the institute, Alexander Krylov, in an interview with RT, said that Tsvetkov regularly took on the organization of scientific expeditions and events, because he knew how to negotiate with a variety of people.
"Everyone in Borok knows him: he is well versed in computers and, if someone needed help, he could drop everything and come to help a person. At the institute, he was called either Sasha or Flower. I understand that his portrait may look unrealistic, because all colleagues say only good things about him, but in the 20 years of our acquaintance, he really never showed aggression, did not raise his voice. That is why we are all shocked by what he is now accused of, "said Alexander Krylov.
RT sent an official request to the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation. The departments declined to comment, citing the secrecy of the investigation.