A month later, the SC opened a criminal case about the attempt on Simonyan

The Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case for the preparation of an attempt on the editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin TV channel RT Margarita Simonyan a month after the arrest of the suspects. This was reported by “Mediazona”, which had a decree of the department at its disposal.

The case was initiated under the articles of preparation for murder for hire due to political and national hatred and storage of weapons with ammunition.

The investigator’s decision mentions only two of the arrested – 22-year-old Egor Saveliev and 18-year-old Mikhail Balashov. The FSB calls the latter the leader of a neo-Nazi group called “Paragraph 88”. According to the investigation, “unidentified persons” contacted Balashov and promised 50 thousand dollars for the murder of Simonyan. Savelyev allegedly helped him monitor the home of the editor of RT. Balashov was detained at the moment when he broke into someone else’s garage to take an AK-74 machine gun and cartridges from the cache.

The resolution of the investigation does not say anything about the journalist Ksenia Sobchak, whose attempt was allegedly also prevented by the FSB.

• On July 15, the FSB reported the detention of members of the “neo-Nazi group” in Moscow and the Ryazan region on suspicion of preparing an attempt on the editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin TV channel RT Margarita Simonyan and journalist Ksenia Sobchak. After that, the Basmanny Court of Moscow arrested seven suspects, but not on charges of preparing an attempt, but on hooliganism. According to the court’s version, the arrested “as part of an organized group of hooligans, motivated by national hatred, with particular cynicism and impudence committed attacks on foreign citizens.”
• Citing a representative of the neo-Nazi association NS/WP, The Insider wrote that the detainees were “interrogated and strangled.”