At a closed meeting of the Russian State Duma, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said President Vladimir Putin is increasing military presence in Chechnya, Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov announced after the meeting, Gazeta.Ru wrote. Former FSB (secret service) director Nikolay Kovalev confirmed as he exited the meeting that Putin has assigned 1125 troops to Chechnya due to the exacerbation of the situation there, quoted Gazeta.Ru.
The secret meeting was held to hear Nurgaliyev’s report on the investigation of the May 9 assassination of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov. MPs were not allowed to bring in cell phones or other means of communications, and even the bathrooms adjacent to the parliament halls were blocked off by security guards. Post-meeting, Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said to the press that persons suspected of being accomplices to the assassination had been named in the report. He did not repeat these names. Other MPs, however, said they had heard no names named; rather, Nurgaliyev recounted possible scenarios already covered by the media. Some theories currently being investigated are that that Kadyrov’s security guards may have aided the assassins or that the construction workers at the stadium where he was murdered had been recruited to plant the explosives. |