"I just came there to film..."
Activist of the radical SERB movement Alexey Kulakov admitted that he was the one in the video recording of the attack on Alexei Navalny. His face, like the face of the direct attacker, was blurred out when the video was published on the REN television channel. However, one of the versions of the video leaked to the Internet is of one of those present at the scene.
The day after the video with banknotes was released on TV, Navalny’s associates found themselves with several similar videos, differing in varying degrees of intervention by the “censor.” In one video, the blurred face moved to reveal a man watching as Navalny was doused with brilliant green. At the same time, he filmed what was happening on his phone. Supporters of the injured oppositionist called on all concerned to try to identify the man.
They found Kulakov quite quickly. He himself was reportedly initially reluctant to admit his involvement. But later he opened up and explained how he ended up at the scene of the emergency.
“To be honest, I just came there to film,” Kulikov told Novaya Gazeta. “A man called me and said that something was planned at this place. I can’t say what kind of person now, I’ll have to look at the phones.”
According to him, he did not expect this: “When I saw what happened there... I strongly condemn this matter.”
Kulikov also stated that he never took part in actions against the opposition, at most he simply filmed a video. At the same time, Novaya indicates that Kulakov, as part of SERB activists, appeared at the scene of the murder of Boris Nemtsov the day after the attack on Navalny. The publication writes that Kulikov “entered into a discussion with activists on duty at the memorial, calling them “Bandera” and filmed what was happening on a video camera.”
Blogger Ilya Varlamov, who himself recently became a victim of an attack with brilliant green, said that the second participant in the video had also been identified - the one who directly threw caustic liquid in Navalny’s face. According to Varlamov, “those who attacked Navalny were identified as activists of the SERB movement Alexander Petrunko and Alexey Kulakov.”
Two messages: about the eye and about the progress of the investigation.
1. About the eye: I returned from the hospital (that is, I went to it every day, but today is a working day, so I already have the registry, certificates and stamps), the diagnosis is the same.
Moderate chemical burn to the right eye. The doctor is still sure that it couldn’t just be green stuff. There is clearly a mixture of green stuff with another caustic liquid. Currently, the eye has lost 80% of its vision. This is not irreversible yet. I am being actively treated and there is hope that I will be cured. Now, of course, it would help me a lot to go to one of the specialized clinics in Switzerland or Spain, but as you know, for five years now I still haven’t received a foreign passport.
I have a complaint about this in the ECHR, I will, of course, win it, since the court directly recognized the illegality of such refusals in the case “Benyash v. Russia” ( Mikhail Benyash, by the way, a member of our “Progress Party”). But here, alas, time is important to me, not legal correctness.
2. About the investigation.
Briefly: it is not being carried out. That is, it is actively conducted by volunteers on the Internet, who have identified the two attackers (thank you very much to everyone for this). And it is not carried out at all by the police, the Investigative Committee and everyone else who is supposed to be involved in this.
Today we are sending several complaints about the inaction of law enforcement agencies. This inaction looks especially curious given the fact that the main direct participant has already been found. Last name everywhere, photo. Journalists are talking on the phone. And only the police know nothing.
Obviously, this inaction is actually helping the attackers. They are given time:
- hide;
- reach an agreement;
- destroy evidence and traces;
- etc
For the rally on March 26, the Investigative Committee already has an investigative and operational group of 150 people, but did any of the rally participants do anything even remotely similar in terms of public danger to splashing green paint and acid in the face? Of course not.
But in my case, no one moves at all. The explanation is clear: well, you caught them, and they will testify that they are innocent and that the “curator from the AP” gave them the original idea to throw a glass in their face, and the “curator from the FSB” gave them data on their movements. And what to do about it.
What we know now:
Two participants in the attack have been precisely identified:
This is Kulakov Alexey Alexandrovich
Who was also or is still a police officer:
The direct attacker was Alexander Viktorovich Petrunko:
Here he is, with the Deputy Speaker of the Duma from United Russia, Pyotr Tolstoy:
In addition, after a careful analysis of the video, we believe that two more people, whose identities we have not yet been able to establish, could have been involved in the attack.
Therefore, we publish photos to use the collective wisdom. Help:
UPD: We are removing the photo of the second person. It turned out that he was not involved in the attack.
Many thanks to everyone for their support and especially to the activists taking part in the search for villains.
Pro-Kremlin activists gained fame after the destruction of the Nemtsov Bridge
The SERB movement, whose activists were suspected of attacking Alexei Navalny with green paint, has been known in Russia for similar actions for several years now. He has a record of attacks on ideological opponents with feces and urine, while activists are regularly photographed with representatives of the Russian elite and the president’s entourage, and also visit the State Duma.
The history of an extremely small movement began in Ukraine in 2014: then, in March, the “Serbs” led by Gosha Tarasevich (the pseudonym of the little-known actor Igor Beketov, who starred in Moscow in the “Cop” TV series) participated in riots in Kharkov in an attempt to create the KhPR – Kharkov People's Republic. Alexander Petrunko, who is now suspected of a direct attack on Navalny, also took part in the same events.
After the failure of the idea with the KhPR, the “Serbs” (SERB stands for South East Radical Block, South-Eastern Radical Block) were forced to move to Moscow (a criminal case was opened against Beketov in Ukraine after the storming of the Kharkov regional administration), where soon, according to Tarasevich , “made themselves comfortable”, taking a place among similar pro-Kremlin activists like the National Liberation Movement of State Duma deputy Yevgeny Fedorov, as well as collaborating with supporters of Eduard Lmionov, who by that time had taken pro-government positions.
So, in particular, on April 17, 2014, Tarasevich, at a NOD rally in support of Novorossiya, said that he had arrived from Dnepropetrovsk only a week ago.
Soon, however, the activities of the “Serbs” lost touch with Ukrainian politics and completely switched to the Russian agenda. Thus, their first high-profile action was the destruction of the Boris Nemtsov memorial, “Nemtsov Bridge”. Tarasevich himself said that initially his supporters simply tied St. George’s ribbons there, and after they were removed, they looted the memorial, after which they took photographs at the scene of the events. It was then that the movement gained its first fame.
These are the degenerates who destroyed the Nemtsov memorial. The photo is literally at the very spot where our comrade was shot. pic.twitter.com/aefiJ9vfir
Ilya Yashin (@IlyaYashin) March 24, 2015
Subsequent actions of the “Serbs” began to be distinguished by a characteristic style with dousing opponents with various liquids: from brilliant green to urine. Thus, during pickets against the war in Ukraine, members of Solidarity, activists Ildar Dadin and Vladimir Ionov (the latter was doused with brilliant green), a journalist, the same Petrunko threw a cake at Navalny a year ago, etc., were attacked with specially collected feces during pickets against the war in Ukraine.
One of the most high-profile actions of this kind was the act of Petrunko: last fall, he poured urine on photographs at the exhibition in Moscow “Jock Sturges. Without embarrassment,” saying that he saw a “spiritual crime” in the nude models. At the same time, representatives of the “Officers of Russia” also took up arms against the exhibition.
As a result, representatives of SERB have gained fame: recently they have been photographed with State Duma deputy Pyotr Tolstoy, Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation Sergei Glazyev, and members of A Just Russia. Shortly before the attack on Navalny, Tarasevich spoke on LiveJournal about his visit to the State Duma and meetings there with faction leaders, although he did not name the purpose of these contacts.
Let us note that SERB includes the Moscow municipal deputy of the Zamoskvorechye district Igor Brumel.
It is characteristic that a member of the movement is also an active police officer: Oleg Chursin, an employee of the Moscow University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who is responsible for the professional training of internal affairs officers. He, like a number of other “Serbs,” shares nationalist views and fights against “Chabadniks” (i.e. Jews), which he regularly reports on his social networks.
In total, SERB, apparently, includes no more than a dozen people, and law enforcement agencies have not initiated administrative or criminal cases regarding any of their actions.