Vladimir Kvachkov
Encyclopedia
Vladimir Vasilievich Kvachkov is an ex-colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...

 of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n Military Intelligence
Military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that exploits a number of information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to commanders in support of their decisions....

 service GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

, author and politician. He came to prominence after he was arrested and charged with an attempt to murder Russian politician and businessman Anatoly Chubais
Anatoly Chubais
Anatoly Borisovich Chubais is a Russian politician and business manager who was responsible for privatization in Russia as an influential member of Boris Yeltsin's administration. From 1998 to 2008 he was the head of the state owned electrical power monopoly RAO UES. The 2004 survey by...

. After three years of imprisonment he was acquitted by the court on 5 June 2008.

Early years

Kvachkov was born to a family of a military officer in the urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement
Urban-type settlement ; , selyshche mis'koho typu ) is an official designation for a type of locality used in some of the countries of the former Soviet Union...

 of Kraskino
Kraskino
Kraskino is an urban locality in Khasansky District of Primorsky Krai, Russia, located on the shore of the Posyet Bay, southwest of Vladivostok, near the border with North Korea. Population:...

 in Khasansky district, Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai
Primorsky Krai , informally known as Primorye , is a federal subject of Russia . Primorsky means "maritime" in Russian, hence the region is sometimes referred to as Maritime Province or Maritime Territory. Its administrative center is in the city of Vladivostok...

, Russian SFSR. He spent his childhood in the town of Ussuriysk
Ussuriysk
Ussuriysk is a city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, located in the fertile valley of the Razdolnaya River, north of Vladivostok and about from both the Chinese border and the Pacific Ocean. Population: -Medieval history:...

 there his father was transferred soon afterwards.

He graduated a Suvorov Military School
Suvorov Military School
The Suvorov Military Schools are a type of boarding school in the former Soviet Union and in modern Russia and Belarus for boys of 14-18. Education in such these schools focuses on military related subjects. The schools are named after Alexander Suvorov, the great 18th century general.Their naval...

 in 1966 and a Higher Military School in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

 in 1970. Kvachkov started his military service as a commander of a Spetsnaz
Spetsnaz
Spetsnaz, Specnaz tr: Voyska specialnogo naznacheniya; ) is an umbrella term for any special forces in Russian, literally "force of special purpose"...

 platoon
Platoon
A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers. Platoons are organized into a company, which typically consists of three, four or five platoons. A platoon is typically the smallest military unit led by a commissioned officer—the...

 stationed in Pskov
Pskov
Pskov is an ancient city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, Russia, located in the northwest of Russia about east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population: -Early history:...

. Later he served in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany
Group of Soviet Forces in Germany
The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany , also known as the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany and the Western Group of Forces were the troops of the Soviet Army in East Germany....

 and Transbaikal Military District
Transbaikal Military District
The Transbaikal Military District was a military district of first the Military of the Soviet Union and then the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, formed on May 17, 1935 and included the Buryat Republic, Chita Oblast, and Yakutia. Chita was the headquarters of the district...

.

In 1978-1981 Kvachkov studied at the Frunze Military Academy that he graduated with distinctions. He studied with the same group as Pavel Popovskikh, a military officer later charged and acquitted by court with the contract killing of journalist Dmitry Kholodov
Dmitry Kholodov
Dmitry Yuryevich Kholodov was educated as a physicist and began his working life, alongside his parents, at the defence industry institute in Klimovsk in the Moscow Region. Faced by limited career prospects he turned to journalism, first working for the local radio. In 1992 he became a reporter...

.

Military career in GRU

In 1981 Kvachkov served in Leningrad Military District
Leningrad Military District
The Leningrad Military District was a military district of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. In 2010 it was merged with the Moscow Military District, the Northern Fleet and the Baltic Fleet to form the new Western Military District.-History:...

. In 1983 he was transferred to Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 to lead a brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...

 of Spetznaz GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

 during the Soviet war in Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...

. The same year he was shell-shocked and had to undergo long medical treatment.

In 1984-1986 Kvachkov served in Pskov
Pskov
Pskov is an ancient city and the administrative center of Pskov Oblast, Russia, located in the northwest of Russia about east from the Estonian border, on the Velikaya River. Population: -Early history:...

, in 1986-1989 he was the Chief of the Staff of a brigade in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany
Group of Soviet Forces in Germany
The Group of Soviet Forces in Germany , also known as the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany and the Western Group of Forces were the troops of the Soviet Army in East Germany....

. In 1989 he became the commander of the 15th GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

 Spetznaz brigade located in the Turkestan Military District
Turkestan Military District
The Turkestan Military District was a military district of both the Imperial Russian Army and the Soviet Armed Forces, with its headquarters at Tashkent. The District was first created during the 1874 Russian military reform when by order of Minister D.A. Milyutinym the territory of Russia was...

 (since 1992 in Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

). He took part in military conflicts in Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...

 (Nagorno-Karabakh War
Nagorno-Karabakh War
The Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the small enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by the Republic of Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan...

, 1990) and in Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

 (Civil war in Tajikistan, 1992).

In the beginning of 1990s Kvachkov was a military consultant of the movie Black Shark devoted to Black Shark helicopter pilots and Spetznaz GRU. In the movie he also played a second plane role of a Spetznaz Colonel.

In 1994-1999 Kvachkov worked in GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...

. In 1997 Kvachkov and Popovskikh (at that time the Chief of Military Intelligence of the Russian Airborne Troops) organized a scientific conference Special Operations and the Need to create the Special Forces branch of the Russian Army (Специальные операции и необходимость создания сил (войск) специального назначения в Вооруженных Силах Российской Федерации). Kvachkov and Popovskikh advocated making spetznaz an arm of service of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
Armed Forces of the Russian Federation
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are the military services of Russia, established after the break-up of the Soviet Union. On 7 May 1992 Boris Yeltsin signed a decree establishing the Russian Ministry of Defence and placing all Soviet Armed Forces troops on the territory of the RSFSR...

. The reform they proposed was not accepted.

Post-retirement life

In 1998 Kvachkov retired from the active military service with the rank of colonel. He started to work as a Senior Researcher (старший научный сотрудник) of the Center for Military Strategic Research of Russian Defense Ministry (Центра военно-стратегических исследований Минобороны РФ). He worked on the theory and practice of the modern guerrilla war. The same year he received the Kandidat nauk (equivalent to Ph. D) for his dissertation "Развитие форм боевого применения сил и средств специальной разведки в современных условиях" (Using forces and methods of special intelligence in the modern time). He prepared a Doktor nauk
Doktor nauk
Doktor nauk is a higher doctoral degree, the second and the highest post-graduate academic degree in the Soviet Union, Russia and in many post-Soviet states. Sometimes referred to as Dr. Hab. The prerequisite is the first degree, Kandidat nauk which is informally regarded equivalent to Ph.D....

 dissertation also devoted to special forces.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Rossiyskaya Gazeta is a Russian government daily newspaper of record which publishes the official decrees, statements and documents of state bodies...

 asserts that during the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Kvachkov presented Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...

 with his plan of an "alternative war". Milošević praised the plan but decided not to escalate the conflict. Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Rossiyskaya Gazeta is a Russian government daily newspaper of record which publishes the official decrees, statements and documents of state bodies...

 also asserted that Kvachkov was the author of the plan to mine the corridor which Chechen fighters led by Shamil Basayev
Shamil Basayev
Shamil Salmanovich Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and a leader of the Chechen rebel movement.Starting as a field commander in the Transcaucasus, Basayev led guerrilla campaigns against the Russian troops for years, as well as launching mass-hostage takings of civilians, with his goal...

 used to break from the siege of Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...

 during the Second Chechen War
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....

. He received an order for the plan.

Charges of the assassination attempt on Anatoly Chubais

On 19 March 2005 Kvachkov was arrested on charges that he was complicit in the attempt to assassinate the head of the RAO UES and politician Anatoly Chubais
Anatoly Chubais
Anatoly Borisovich Chubais is a Russian politician and business manager who was responsible for privatization in Russia as an influential member of Boris Yeltsin's administration. From 1998 to 2008 he was the head of the state owned electrical power monopoly RAO UES. The 2004 survey by...

. The attempt took part two days earlier on 17 March. The armored car carrying Chubais was damaged by a remotely controlled Improvised explosive device
Improvised explosive device
An improvised explosive device , also known as a roadside bomb, is a homemade bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action...

. The damaged car was able to continue moving without stopping while the second car carrying Chubais's bodyguards was shot upon. Allegedly the assassins left the scene in the green Saab
Saab Automobile
Saab Automobile AB, better known as Saab , is a Swedish car manufacturer owned by Dutch automobile manufacturer Swedish Automobile NV, formerly Spyker Cars NV. It is the exclusive automobile Royal Warrant holder as appointed by the King of Sweden...

 car registered to Kvachkov. While the first search of Kvachkov's home found nothing of interest the second search found firecracker
Firecracker
A firecracker is a small explosive device primarily designed to produce a large amount of noise, especially in the form of a loud bang; any visual effect is incidental to this goal. They have fuses, and are wrapped in a heavy paper casing to contain the explosive compound...

 in Kvachkov's dacha
Dacha
Dacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and post-Soviet cities. Cottages or shacks serving as family's main or only home are not considered dachas, although many purpose-built dachas are recently being converted for year-round residence...

. Kvachkov denied his involvement and refused to help the investigation.

Soon Kvachkov and two other Spetznaz troopers, Alexander Naydenov and Robert Yashin were detained under suspicion of involvement into the assassination. According to the version of the investigators, Vladimir Kvachkov, Naydenov and Yashin as well as Vladimir Kvachkov's son, Alexander Kvachkov and Ivan Mironov, son of former Minister for Media and Information, Boris Mironov conspired to assassinate Chubais. The version was mostly based on the words of a single witness, Igor Karvatko.

In the spring 2006, the court hearings started. The accused maintained that the assassination was staged by Chubais himself. In November–December 2006 Karvatko changed his testimony accusing the investigators in undue pressure and threats. He said that he was abducted by militia
Militsiya
Militsiya or militia is used as an official name of the civilian police in several former communist states, despite its original military connotation...

 soon after assassination attempt and tortured. He agreed to slander defendants after his kidnappers threatened to imprison his wife and showed him a forged protocol of the search in his apartment alleging there had been found illegal ammunition
Cartridge (firearms)
A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...

 and narcotic
Narcotic
The term narcotic originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with any sleep-inducing properties. In the United States of America it has since become associated with opioids, commonly morphine and heroin and their derivatives, such as hydrocodone. The term is, today, imprecisely...

s. He also provided audio recordings of some of his conversations with militia officers pressuring him. But the judge refused to make an examination of this tape and to file it to the case. Right away after that Karvatko statement the jury panel was dismissed at the request of the prosecutor who stated the jury could no longer remain unbiased when they heard how Karvatko's testimony had been obtained. Only initial Karvatko's testimony had been considered valid by court. While the lawyers of the plaintiff insisted that Karvatko was pressured by the suspects and their friends, Tatiana Mironova, mother of another suspect, Ivan Mironov, publicly accused investigators in torturing Karvatko. In December 2006 the court was restarted with the new jury.
Finally, after three years of imprisonment Kvachkov, Naydenov and Yashin were acquitted by the court on 5 June 2008.

After the acquittal of Kvachkov Chubais made statement telling that he has no doubts that Kvachkov was responsible for the assassination. On the other hand he believes that acquittal of the guilty is better than sentencing of innocent

After the acquittal Kvachkov said: "now I have a chance to finish what I started" meaning his doctoral thesis, but some media quoted it out of context. Still he maintained that he did not participate in the assassination and that it was staged by Chubais himself to divert attention from his business problems

The case returned to court again after the prosecution's appeal. The new trial started on September 29, 2008. The next court session has been postponed until October 13 because only 6 out of 500 potential jurors arrived to court on the day the jury selection was scheduled to begin.

On October 13, 2008 the case was sent by court back to the prosecution after the judge received Kvachkov's case and Ivan Mironov's case as two separate cases. The judge sent both cases back to the prosecutor so that they would be merged into one case.

The trial on a new merged case began on November 23, 2009. On 21 August 2010 the jury has found that there is not enough evidence presented in the persecutor case and acquitted all the defendants.

On December 22 the Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the Russian Federation
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is the court of last resort in Russian administrative law, civil law and criminal law cases. It also supervises the work of lower courts. Its predecessor is the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union....

 rejected the prosecutor's appeal and confirmed jury verdict. The next day, Kvachkov's apartment was assaulted by FSB and he was arrested again on charges of rising an insurrection using crossbow
Crossbow
A crossbow is a weapon consisting of a bow mounted on a stock that shoots projectiles, often called bolts or quarrels. The medieval crossbow was called by many names, most of which derived from the word ballista, a torsion engine resembling a crossbow in appearance.Historically, crossbows played a...

s. Such cases are processed without jury and secretly, so some media have speculated that the new sentence may not be as successful for defendant as the first one.
Kvachkov denies new charges and claims about the involvement of Chubais to his arrest. Chubais claimed that new charges are very serious and that Kvachkov is insane
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...

.

Political life

On 2005-12-04, Kvachkov took 30% and won the second place in the byelections of the State Duma
State Duma
The State Duma , common abbreviation: Госду́ма ) in the Russian Federation is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia , the upper house being the Federation Council of Russia. The Duma headquarters is located in central Moscow, a few steps from Manege Square. Its members are referred to...

 deputies at the North-East of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

. He lost to Sergey Shavrin from the United Russia
United Russia
United Russia is a centrist political party in Russia and the largest party in the country, currently holding 315 of the 450 seats in the State Duma. The party was founded in December 2001, through a merger of the Unity and Fatherland-All Russia parties...

.

On 2006-03-12, Kvachkov stood for the State Duma again, now in the Medvedkovo district of Moscow. He was not registered as a candidate by the regional Electoral Commission despite him, Naydenov and Yashin keeping a hunger strike
Hunger strike
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance or pressure in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke feelings of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not...

 in their prison.

Both times, Moscow organization of "Labour Russia" and Vanguard of Red Youth
Vanguard of Red Youth
Vanguard of Red Youth ), is a radical Russian communist youth group. Its website describes it as an "independent youth organization, entering the all-Russian public political motion." Its "territory of action" is Russia, which it insists is still the heart and soul of "the republic of the USSR."...

 helped him with his election campaign.

Publications

  • Спецназ России (Spetznaz of Russia), 2004, Online vesion, ISBN 9785931651866 (2007 edition)
  • Спецназ. 55 лет соединениям и частям специального назначения Вооруженных Сил Российской Федерации (Spetznaz. 55 years of Special Operations Formations of Russian Federation), 2005, ISBN 5366000025
  • Опасен Верностью России (Dangerous by his loyalty to Russia), 2006 ISBN 5926502314

Trivia

Kvachkov's cell mate at the Matrosskaya Tishina
Matrosskaya Tishina
Matrosskaya Tishina is a detention facility located in northern Moscow, known by the name of the street on which it is located...

 detention facility was former business oligarch
Business oligarch
Business oligarch is a near-synonym of the term "business magnate", borrowed by the English speaking and western media from post-Soviet parlance to describe the huge, fast-acquired wealth of some businessmen of the former Soviet republics during the privatization in Russia and other post-Soviet...

 Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky is a Russian prisoner, considered by some - such as Amnesty International - to have been imprisoned for political reasons, jailed until 2016 and a former Russian oligarch and businessman...

. According to Kvachkov Khodorkovsky is an exception among the oligarchs: "I have not found him intriguing against the state", said Kvachkov.

Khodorkovsky also planned to participate in the Duma byelections for the same seat as Kvachkov. His plan was based on the legal loophole: a convicted felon cannot vote or stand for a parliament, but if his case is lodged with the Court of Appeal he still has all the electoral rights. Unexpectedly it took only a couple of weeks to process Khodorkovsky's appeal, invalidating any of his electoral plans until the end of his sentence.

External links

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