Nashi chief loses case against beaten journalist

When Oleg Kashin was beaten senseless in front of his home last November, few had any doubts it had to do with his duties as a journalist. Kashin had – and still has – one of the sharpest tongues in the country.

Suspicion immediately turned to Nashi, the Kremlin youth group overseen by chief ideologue Vladislav Surkov and its first leader Vassily Yakemenko. The group has a history of threats and violence, as noted by Kashin in this New York Times op-ed. It also has an impenetrable krysha (a Russian word translated “roof” and meaning “protection”), in the forum of Surkov and the country’s top leadership.

When Kashin began pointing the finger at Nashi in general and Yakemenko in particular many expected consequences (not violent ones though – Kashin’s case had international resonance and anyway he is said to go around with bodyguards now).

Yakemenko swiftly filed suit against Kashin for defamation, calling for an apology and 500,000 rubles (nearly $18,000) for each alleged defaming (there were three). On Tuesday, that suit was thrown out by Moscow’s Khamovnichesky Court (the same one that tried oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky).

The judge, Igor Kananovich, said that Yakemenko had failed to show that Kashin was speaking in “facts” (versus theories).

Kashin took to his blog to write a post titled “Victory-victory-victory”: “It’s understood that nothing special has happened, and that the attack on me has still not been investigated, and soon there will be Seliger [Nashi’s summer youth camp], and [Nashi spokeswoman] Kristina Potupchik will write a new post about me, and everything will continue on as it is.”

“But today is a holiday for me, and a day of great failure for Vassily Yakemenko,” Kashin wrote. “I hope that it’s not his last failure and not my last victory.”