Three recent killings in Russia raise troubling questions about the rule of law in that country. The three incidents are not linked but that is not to say they are random killings: Investigations of the murders will probe the same murky corners where political and economic influence intersect. The realization of the modern Russian dream to reclaim its rightful place on the global stage may well depend on whether those investigations succeed in uncovering and punishing the killers and those who hired them.
The first murder claimed the life of Andrei Kozlov, first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia who was assassinated on Sept. 14 as he climbed into his car after a soccer game. Kozlov was widely believed to have become a target as a result of his efforts to fight corruption in the Russian banking industry. He had closed a number of banks tied to money laundering and other illegal activities and was gunned down on the streets for his trouble.
The second killing targeted Enver Ziganshin, who was murdered in his sauna on Sept. 30 in Irkutsk. Ziganshin was chief engineer for Rusia Petroleum, a company partly owned by BP and which is developing an $18 billion project at the Kovyta natural gas fields, a huge find that is estimated to hold 2 trillion cubic meters of gas. The killing occurred less than a week after the Natural Resources Ministry announced it was going to review Rusia Petroleum's license, challenging its compliance with environmental laws and whether it would be extracting the gas on schedule. At the same time, the company has come under pressure from Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, and Rosneft, a government-backed oil company, both of which expressed interest in gaining control of the project.