Hey Oliver Stone, a lone Chechen gunman killed Boris Nemtsov on the Kremlin’s grassy knoll
The growing consensus that a group of radical Islamists killed Boris Nemtsov on Feb. 27 as some kind of revenge for his comments about Charlie Hebdo — a story now playing all over state-run Russian TV — is in many ways the most perfectly imperfect ending to a puzzling murder case that has fascinated the Russian media. The tragic murder of Nemtsov has already engendered many conspiracy theories, some of them worthy of the most wildly speculative conspiracy theories that surrounded the death of JFK.
By following the “Caucasian Trail” (a term instantly recognizable to anyone in Russia) to Chechnya, arresting 5 suspects, and securing a confession of guilt from one suspect, the Kremlin gets to prove that it always gets its man. The head of Chechnya (Ramzan Kadyrov) gets another chance to show that he’s loyal to Vladimir Putin and make some public announcements on Instagram (the Chechens have Instagram!) related to the suspect. Russia-watchers in the West get to heave a collective sigh of relief that it was the Chechens behind this all, not the Russian government or some kind of rogue nationalist government-within-a-government. Finally, for the average Russian, the story of sinister Chechens from the North Caucasus committing a heinous revenge murder makes as much sense as anything else on state-run TV these days.
But there’s so much that just doesn’t add up in this version of the murder.
For one, you have a murder that took place in the very heart of one of the most policed and monitored areas in the world, and yet, none of the security cameras — including more than a handful attached to the walls of the Kremlin — that could have seen the murder take place actually saw it.
Secondly, no eyewitnesses actually saw the murder take place — the only eyewitness who could have possibly seen the murder — the beautiful 23-year-old Ukrainian model Anna Duritskaya who was with Nemtsov on the night of the murder— claims to have seen nothing. She didn’t even stay around long enough for the funeral and she’s now back in Kiev after being interrogated by investigators.
Thirdly, the security patrol in the area around the Kremlin apparently had the night off, so the security operatives who might have been following Nemtsov in the hours leading up to a huge protest march in Moscow were nowhere to be found. A mysterious car seen on the bridge belonged to the security services, but was being used as a freelance taxi on the night of the murder.
Fourthly, the Moscow police didn’t arrive for 11 minutes until after the murder on the bridge. Again, in one of the most heavily patrolled and monitored places in the world.
Fifthly, the one piece of CCTV video footage that might have explained what actually took place is so grainy that it’s hard to make out anything truly concrete. And a snow removal truck that appears to have played a role in the murder-conspiracy conveniently blocked the site of the murder when the shots rang out.
In other words, nobody really knows what took place, and even after the arrest of five suspects and a confession of guilt, the details are still sketchy. There’s even a plot line involving the Russian security services in Grozny, where one Chechen suspect apparently blew himself up with a grenade. So maybe there were six people involved.
Six is a conspiracy.
So, let’s think like conspiracy experts. Assuming that the Chechens were actually involved, there’s the outside possibility that these guys were basically just “patsies” for someone higher up the political food chain. Using the JFK analogy, was Zaur Dadayev (the Chechen Lee Harvey Oswald) a lone gunman acting alone, or was he a “patsy” for an ultra-nationalist group, for someone within the Russian government, or even for the West?
This is not as crazy as it sounds. There’s a whole history of the “Caucasian Trail” appearing again and again anytime there’s a controversial criminal case in Russia. One classic example is the 2006 murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya on Putin’s birthday, which was eventually blamed on a group of 10 Chechens, while scandalous whispers suggested that Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky might have been behind it. Make the right connections in conspiracy-land, and one could just as easily blame the murder of Nemtsov on a syndicate of Chechens, who were somehow financed by an oligarch such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky looking to destabilize Russia.
Chechens, as everyone now knows in Russia, make the best villains. And the latest crop of Chechen suspects in the murder of Boris Nemtsov — including suspected gunman Zaur Dadayev — look like they are straight out of central casting. Even before President Vladimir Putin promised to “rub them out in the outhouse” when he launched the first Chechen War back in 1999, Chechens have been accused of just about everything in Russia — blowing up apartment buildings, running the mafia, blowing up subways, holding hostages, depraving the nation’s youth with narcotics, and being Islamic militants.
And it’s not just in Russia where Chechens are demonized. Consider that the Boston Marathon bombing trial is taking place right now in the United States and bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is — you guessed it — “of Chechen origin.” The cold-blooded mafia killers who made the hit on Denzel Washington at the end of “Training Day”? Chechens. The shadowy “most wanted man” in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last film? Yes, he’s half-Chechen. The evil bad guy in “The Equalizer”? A Chechen. There’s even a cartoon villain who fights Batman known as “The Chechen.” For Americans, Chechens are either cartoon villains or total badasses, and that makes the current version of events at least somewhat plausible.
What this “Nemtsov Affair” needs is a Zapruder film. Well, there is a Zapruder film, of sorts, a terribly grainy Russian CCTV video of what went down on the night of Feb. 27. The only problem is that the exact moment when the murder took place is obscured by a mysterious snow removal “cleaning car” that may or may not have been involved. (Here’s one fascinating version of how the snow removal “cleaning car” played the key role in the whole murder.)
If Oliver Stone ever wants to make a new film about Russia (and signs are, he does) — here’s one idea: Make a film about an assassination of a high-level political figure revered in the West. Add in some shadowy characters from the underworld. Introduce a grainy film that may or may not show what actually happened. Pepper the film with conspiracy theories about the state security services. Make the suspect a “patsy” who may or may not have been backed by higher authorities. Introduce a radical story twist involving the Grassy Knoll. (In this case, not actually a Grassy Knoll as in Dealey Plaza, more like the cobblestone knoll of Red Square). That’s not just the plot line for “JFK” — that could also be the plot line for the real-life murder of Boris Nemtsov.
