Vladimir Vasilievich Kvachkov (; born 5 August 1948) is a Russian former Spetsnaz colonel and military intelligence officer, known for being arrested and charged for the attempted assassination of politician Anatoly Chubais in 2005, for which he was jailed for three years until he was acquitted on 5 June 2008.
Early years Vladimir Vasilievich Kvachkov was born on 5 August 1948, Kraskino, Primorsky Krai, Russian SFSR, the son of a military officer, and spent his childhood as a military brat in the town of Ussuriysk, where his father was transferred.Biography Official site of Kvachkov . Vkvachkov.ru. Retrieved on 27 May 2012.Sergey Ptichkin. Досье полковника Квачкова. — Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 21 March 2005 Kvachkov graduated from Suvorov Military School in 1966 and the Higher Military School in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR in 1970. Kvachkov started his military service as a commander of a Spetsnaz platoon stationed in Pskov, and later served in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and Transbaikal Military District. In 1978, Kvachkov enrolled at the Frunze Military Academy and honourably graduated it in 1981. He had studied within the same group as Pavel Popovskikh, a military officer later charged and acquitted by court with the contract killing of journalist Dmitry Kholodov.Квачков, Владимир collection of materials by Lenta.ru
Col. Kvachkov's ribbon chart:click on the ribbon bar to see the award
Military career in GRU In 1981, shortly after his graduation from the military academy, Kvachkov began serving in Leningrad Military District. In 1983, he was transferred to Afghanistan to lead a brigade of Spetsnaz GRU during the Soviet–Afghan War, where he became shell-shocked and had to undergo medical treatment.
From 1984 to 1986, Kvachkov served in Pskov, and from 1986 to 1989 he was the Chief of the Staff of a brigade in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. In 1989, Kvachkov became the commander of the 15th GRU Spetsnaz brigade located in the Turkestan Military District, and took part in military conflicts in Azerbaijan during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1990, and in the Tajikistani Civil War in 1992. Kvachkov later served as a military consultant for the movie Black Shark, devoted to Black Shark helicopter pilots and Spetznaz GRU, where he also played a role as a Spetznaz colonel in the film.
In 1997 Kvachkov and Pavel Popovskikh (at that time the Chief of Military Intelligence of the Russian Airborne Troops) organized the scientific conference Special Operations and the Need to create the Special Forces branch of the Russian Army. Kvachkov and Popovskikh advocated making Spetsnaz groups an arm of service of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. 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 research fellow with the Center for Military and Strategic Research of Russian Defense Ministry, working on the theory and practice of modern guerrilla warfare. The same year he received the Candidate of sciences degree (equivalent to PhD) for his dissertation Development of means and methods of special intelligence in the modern warfare. In 2005, he prepared a doctoral dissertation, with emphasis on special forces.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta asserts that during the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Kvachkov presented Slobodan Milošević with his plan of an "alternative war". Milošević praised the plan but decided not to escalate the conflict. Rossiyskaya Gazeta also asserted that Kvachkov was the author of the plan to mine the corridor which Chechen fighters led by Shamil Basayev used to break from the siege of Grozny during the Second Chechen War.
Assassination attempt On 17 March 2005, Anatoly Chubais, head of the state run monopoly RAO UES and a major privatization economic reformer, narrowly escaped an ambush outside Moscow when his convoy was blasted with roadside bombs and trapped under automatic gunfire. The armored car carrying Chubais was damaged by a remotely controlled improvised explosive device, but was able to continue moving without stopping while the second car carrying bodyguards was shot upon. Allegedly the assailants left the scene in the green Saab car. Police investigators traced the green Saab reported at the scene, which turned out to be Kvachkov's wife car. The prosecution insisted not to divulge details of the case.
Arrest Soon Kvachkov and two other former Spetznaz troopers, Alexander Naydenov and Robert Yashin were detained under suspicion of involvement into the assassination. The Meshchansky District Court of Moscow approved ten-days-arrest for Kvachkov. Investigators did not have any direct evidence or indicating his guilt, but indirect evidence allowed the court to issue the warrant. Igor Yartykh, a lawyer who won a case involving former paratroopers accused of the murder of Dmitry Kholodov, took Kvachkov's defense. 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.
On 19 March 2005, Kvachkov, who was a specialist in explosives, was arrested as a suspect in the Chubais assassination attempt. While the first search of Kvachkov's home discovered nothing crime related, the second search found firecrackers in Kvachkov's dacha.Квачков молчать не будет. Gazeta.ru (30 June 2010). Retrieved on 27 May 2012. Kvachkov denied his involvement and refused to help the investigation. On 25 March 2005, Russian prosecutors formally charged Kvachkov with the assassination attempt.
First trial Court hearings began in spring 2006. 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 police 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 illegal ammunition and narcotics had been found. He 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's 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 the initial of Karvatko's testimonies had been considered valid by court.Свидетель исчезнет вслед за Чубайсом. Gazeta.ru (5 December 2006). Retrieved on 27 May 2012.Свидетель отрицания. Vremya.ru (27 November 2006). Retrieved on 27 May 2012. 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 a new jury. As of December 2007, jury had been dismissed again, and hearings continued with the third jury. Pro-Kremlin liberal media pleaded for "tough sentences," to cool "folk avengers" and finally, after three years of imprisonment Kvachkov, Naydenov and Yashin were acquitted by the court on 5 June 2008.Присяжные вынесли оправдательный вердикт по делу Владимира Квачкова. After the acquittal of Kvachkov, Chubais made statement saying that he has no doubts that Kvachkov was responsible for the assassination, and that it was Kvachkov who personally tried to shoot him in March 2005. On the other hand, he believes that acquittal of the guilty is better than sentencing of innocentЗаявление Председателя правления РАО "ЕЭС России" Анатолия Чубайса на вердикт присяжных по делу Квачкова и других . Rao-ees.ru (5 June 2008). Retrieved on 27 May 2012. Kvachkov, in retaliation, called the attack on Chubais the "first act of armed resistance in the national liberation war", Around the same time, Kvachkov said "now I have a chance to finish what I started", meaning his doctoral thesis,Каспаров.Ru | Суд оправдал всех участников покушения на Чубайса. Kasparov.ru (5 June 2008). Retrieved on 27 May 2012. 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 problemsKvachkov interview to Echo of Moscow The case returned to court again after the prosecution's appeal. The new trial started on 29 September 2008. The next court session was postponed until 13 October because only 6 out of 500 potential jurors arrived to court on the day the jury selection was scheduled to begin. On 13 October 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 could be merged into one case. The trial on a new merged case began on 23 November 2009. On 21 August 2010 the jury found that there was not enough evidence presented in the persecutor case and all the defendants were acquitted again.
The Crossbow Coup
On 22 December 2009, The Supreme Court rejected the prosecutor's appeal and confirmed the jury's verdict. The next day, Kvachkov's apartment was raided by FSB and he was arrested again on charges of raising an insurrection using crossbows. Such cases are processed without jury and secretly, so some media have speculated that the new sentence may not be as successful for the defendant as the first one.Ъ-Газета – Дело о покушении на Анатолия Чубайса не удалось. Kommersant.ru (23 December 2010). Retrieved on 27 May 2012.Квачков не признает себя виновным в подготовке вооруженного мятежа | Суды | Лента новостей "РИА Новости". Rian.ru (23 December 2010). Retrieved on 27 May 2012. Chubais claimed that the new charges are very serious and that Kvachkov is insane.Журнал А. Б. Чубайса – Моего «друга» Квачкова опять арестовали . A-chubais.livejournal.com (24 December 2010). Retrieved on 27 May 2012.Чубайс: обвинение Квачкова в мятеже – дело нешуточное. Gazeta.ru (24 December 2010). Retrieved on 27 May 2012.
The Moscow City Court approved the arrest. Kvachkov's lawyer Andrei Pershin said via the phone that he believed that the arrest of his client was Chubais's revenge. "Considering the fact that he was already in pretrial detention, we expected this to happen," Pershin said about the court decision to keep Kvachkov in pretrial detention for two months. He also stated that the defense planned to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The charges were linked to the activities of the group of Kvachkov supporters, the People's Front for Liberation of Russia, whose members in Tolyatti were accused of training with crossbows in a plot to overthrow the government. Thus, Kvachkov faced literally decades behind bars on charges of assisting terrorists and planning an armed uprising. Terrorism-related charges also meant he could not be tried by jury that time, which implied that there was a greater possibility of a guilty verdict.