The Terror of Victory: The Failed Assassination of Vladimir Putin
Who said one cannot step into the same river twice? On the morning of 27 February Russia’s Channel One broke the news that seemed a little surreal: Russian and Ukrainian special services had thwarted a plot to assassinate the current Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin. Allegedly, and there is still little known on the subject, the conspiracy was planned by the powerful Chechen Islamist Doku Umarov, the man behind a number of high profile terrorist attacks in Russia including the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings and the 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing.
Execution of the plan had been entrusted to three men. 30 year old Adam Osmaev was already known to Russian special services and even wanted as a suspect in another plot to assassinate the Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov back in 2007. According to the media, the more experienced Osmaev was training Ilya Pyanzin and Ruslan Madaev, the latter to become a martyr by detonating himself near Putin’s convoy. That undertaking came to an unexpected end when Madaev accidentally triggered the self-made explosive device whilst assembling it in Ukranian Odessa. He was killed on the spot, Pyanzin was badly injured and subsequently arrested, Osmaev was arrested a month later.
The lack of official comment from the Federal Security Service (FSB, Russian analogue of FBI) feeds speculation around the details of the plot as well as the background of its coordinator Adam Osmaev who is currently collaborating with Ukrainian special services, attempting to delay his extradition to Russia. Whether those arrested were indeed plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Putin (the Russian state media present this as fact), the timing of the event is hard to ignore. The explosion took place on 4 January 2012 and Osmaev was arrested on 4 February (conspiracy theorists may note that the presidential elections are scheduled for the 4 March). Keeping a lid on news of that magnitude for three weeks and then breaking it days before a presidential election does indeed looks a touch suspicious.
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