- Date
- 10/12/1995
- First
- Yaroslav
- Surname
- ZVALTSEV
- Sex/Age
- M, 25
- Incident
- homicide
- Motive
- nJ
- Place
- office
- Job
- director
- Medium
- Federal District Plus
- URALS
- Street, Town, Region
- Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk Region
- Freelance
- no
- Local/National
- local, Russky dom
- Other Ties
- Cause of Death
- shot, contract killing
- Legal Qualification
- no information
- Impunity
- No Information
Yaroslav Zvaltsev, financial director of the Russky dom newspaper, died in Magnitogorsk on 10 December 1995 as a consequence of severe wounds suffered in an attack five days earlier. He was shot twice in the back on the evening of 5 December.
Duma deputy Alexander Pochinok linked the assault to the local campaign for the 17 December elections to the Duma. On 4 December people who described themselves as the economic security staff of the Magnitogorsk metallurgical combine came to the newspaper’s office and began to threaten that they would attack Zvaltsev. The following day they returned and this time it was the chief editor whom they threatened and warned “to keep his nose out of political affairs”.
The people issuing the threats, deputy Pochinok told Echo Moskvy radio station, “represented the interests of Dinus Saifullin who was standing for election in that district. They were asking that people vote for him and were prepared to kill for such a trifle.”