Ukrainian security services discover alleged Putin assassination plot following Odessa explosion
An alleged Chechen plan to assassinate Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin shortly after the March 4 2012 presidential elections was uncovered following the arrest of two plotters in Odessa, Ukraine, according to Russian TV news channel Channel 1.
The would-be assassins were discovered after an explosion in their Odessa apartment led the Ukrainian Security Services to become suspicions of bomb possible preparation at the site. The news was announced on Monday, February 27 2012, weeks after the explosion but just one week before the Russian presidential elections in which Putin is the favorite.
Channel 1, Russia’s most popular state channel, aired a 4 minute news reel featuring video confessions of the terrorists and pictures from the explosion scene in Odessa. Skeptics who may see the plot as a PR ploy by Putin’s campaign headquarters, have “clear signs of mental illness” the Channel 1 press service reported.
The explosion itself took place on February 4 2012 in Odessa, Ukraine. It was first thought to be a gas explosion but on investigation the Ukrainian Security Services discovered traces of explosives and signs of bomb preparation. One of the two plotters, present in the apartment, died in the explosion. The survivor, Ilya Pyanzin a Kazakh citizen, admitted to preparing mines that were to pave Putin’s daily route to the Kremlin. He denounced his terrorist team coordinator Adam Osmayev, whose laptop, it was discovered, contained videos of the Prime Minister’s escort on the way to the Kremlin.
Pyanzin claims he was hired by Dokku Umarov, a notorious Chechen terrorist dissident. Pyanzin also said that Umarov helped him get from the United Arab Emirates to Ukraine to prepare bombs to explode strategic economic targets and for the assassination attempt on Putin. Umarov is one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, he figures on the United Nations Security Council list of individuals associated with Al-Qaida.
Umarov has admitted to masterminding among others the Domodedovo airport bombings in 2011 and the Moscow Metro bombings of 2010, both large and well coordinated attacks on Moscow’s vulnerable transport system. Braving the Channel 1 accusation of insanity many commentators admit they are skeptical about the assassination attempt. Ben Eris of Business New Europe summed up the shortcomings of the story.
Firstly the incompetence of the project: to explode mines on the heavily guarded and monitored Kutuzovsky prospect in central Moscow, where Putin speeds daily in an escort of 8 identical cars.
Secondly the plan does not resemble a Chechen attack, whose terrorist tactics have always been either hostage taking as in the Dubrovka or Beslan attacks, or bomb explosions at airports or metro stations, such as Domodedovo.
Thirdly the media coverage of the bombing reminds many oppositionists of the explosions that occurred in Moscow’s residential apartment blocks in the year 2000, weeks prior to Putin’s electoral advance from Prime Minister to President. Chechen terrorists were blamed for the explosions but the guilty have not been discovered and many commentators suspect they were staged by the Russian Federal Security Services. Opposition figures have commented the Channel 1 news announcement with spite.
“This is indeed a timely assassination plot,” Dmitry Oreshkin, political analyst and head of Mercator Group said for daily Kommersant.
“The Ukrainian Secret Services are needed to give this story credibility, no-one would believe an announcement of just our Secret Services,” Sergei Mitrokhin one of the leaders of Jabloko, the liberal opposition party commented.
Evgenia Chirikova, leader of the Defense of Chimkovo Forest Movement called the announcement “the morning’s dosage of the Security Services first rate sense of humor: live from Odessa.”
Photo by Misha Japaridze-Pool. Courtesy of Polish news wire PAP
