ABSTRACT
Like Markelov’s murder, the arrest of his alleged killers became a political event. On 5 November, President Medvedev received the chairman, Aleksandr Bortnikov, for a public report about the case. To underline the importance of the occasion, a colleague of Anastasia Baburova from Novaya Gazeta was invited to the Kremlin to witness the exchange. One day after Medvedev’s meeting with Bortnikov, Senior Investigator Igor’ Krasnov made his first move against the Kremlin’s far-right proxies. Russkii Obraz’s reaction to the arrest of Tikhonov and Khasis was characteristically ambiguous. In their public utterances, its leaders hurried to dissociate themselves from the accused. Tikhonov’s protestations of innocence were difficult to reconcile with the belligerent tone of the New Year messages from the prisoners, which were posted several days later on Russkii Obraz’s website and widely disseminated in the ultranationalist blogosphere. Tikhonov’s mixed messages were echoed by his comrades at liberty.
