Kholodov, Dmitry Yuryevich

Born June 21, 1967 in Zagorsk near Moscow (now Sergiev Posad). Mother, Zoya Aleksandrovna, and father, Yuri Viktorovich, were engineers and worked at the Central Scientific Research Institute of Precision Engineering . Dmitry Kholodov grew up in the city of Klimovsk near Moscow, studied at school number 5, which now bears his name.

After graduation, he served in the Marine Corps .

He graduated with honors from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), worked as an engineer at the Central Research Institute of Precision Engineering and as a radio correspondent in Klimovsk .

In August 1992, he became a correspondent for the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. He wrote about the modern Russian army, visited many hot spots - in Abkhazia , Chechnya , Azerbaijan , on the Tajik - Afghan border.

The journalist was known for his publications on corruption in the Russian army . In his materials, he repeatedly criticized Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev ^{[1] [2] [3]} , whom he accused of involvement in a corruption scandal in the Western Group of Forces .

On October 17, 1994, Dmitry Kholodov died in Moscow at a newspaper editorial office from the explosion of a makeshift mine trap in a diplomatic briefcase . Death occurred as a result of traumatic shock and bleeding .

According to colleagues, Kholodov suggested that the diplomat received in a storage room at the Kazan station contains documents on the illegal arms trade with Chechen separatists .

He was buried at the Troekurovsky cemetery in Moscow. He was posthumously awarded the Prizes of the Union of Russian Journalists and For Freedom of the Press (both in 1994) ^[4] .

The day after the murder, on October 18, 1994, the Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case under the article “Intentional murder under aggravating circumstances” (Article 102, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR ). On October 19, the Prosecutor General's Office reclassified the deed to the article “Terrorist Act that Caused the Death of a Person” (Article 213, Part 3 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR). On November 11, 1994, the first suspect in the case, an GRU colonel Vladimir Kuznetsov, was detained, but his involvement in Kholodov’s death was not confirmed, and in June 1995 the charge was dropped ^[5] .

In 1998-2000, former head of intelligence of the Airborne Forces, reserve colonel Pavel Popovskikh , former commander of the special forces detachment of the Airborne Forces, major Vladimir Morozov, his deputies majors Alexander Soroka and Konstantin Mirzoyants, former paratrooper businessman Konstantin Barkovsky, deputy director general of the private security company Ross Ross Alexander, were detained on suspicion of murder Kapuntsov. They were charged under aggravated murder. The case was examined for four years, during which the accused were in custody in a pre-trial detention center . In February 2001, the ex-Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation P. Grachev ^[6] acted as a witness at the trial. On June 26, 2002, the Moscow District Military Court acquitted all the accused for lack of evidence , released them from custody and canceled the arrest of their property ^{[5] [7]} .

On May 27, 2003, the military collegium of the Supreme Court protesting the Prosecutor General’s Office quashed the acquittal, sending the case back for a new trial. On June 10, 2004, the suspects were again acquitted. In addition, the court issued a private ruling against the Prosecutor General, accusing the investigating staff of gross violations of the Constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure and obliging the prosecutor general Vladimir Ustinov to report on the measures taken within a month. The Prosecutor General’s Office and Dmitry Kholodov’s parents filed a cassation appeal with the Supreme Court. In March 2005, the military collegium of the Supreme Court confirmed the validity of the verdicts of the Moscow District Military Court ^{[8] [9] [10]} .

In September 2005, Kholodov's parents filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights . A year later, the court announced its refusal to consider the claim, motivating the decision that the murder of Kholodov was committed before Russia ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1998 ^[11] .

In 2006-2009, the former defendants filed lawsuits in the Supreme Court for compensation by the Prosecutor General for the damage caused to them. The claims were partially satisfied ^{[12] [13] [14]} .

At the moment, the murder remains unsolved. In 2012, the former Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev died, and in February 2018 Pavel Popovskikh died - according to the investigation, the organizer of the Kholodov murder, later acquitted by the court, which found his guilt unproven ^[15] .

• His name is the school number 5 of the city of Klimovsk, in which the journalist studied. A memorial plaque is installed on the school building.
• There is also a street named after him.
• On the building of the editorial board of the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets in Moscow ( Ul. 1905 , 7) in 1995, a memorial plaque commemorates Dmitry Kholodov.
• On October 17, 1995, a monument was unveiled at the grave.

• The song “Blue Arrow”, performed by the group “ White Guard ”, is dedicated to Dmitry Kholodov.
• Dmitry Kholodov became the prototype of a number of characters in Russian television series, including:
  • Dmitry Sholokhov (" Stiletto-2 "),
  • Ilya Gavrilov (" Time of Cruel "),
  • Denis Goryachev (" Afghan Ghost ")
  • and etc.
• The circumstances of the death of Dmitry Kholodov formed the basis of one of the series of the television film " Vazhnyak " (series "Bomb for a journalist").
• The events of 1993-1994, which caused the death of the journalist, are reflected in the Russian television series Rodina (as memories of Major Bragin about life in captivity).

• Dmitry Yuryevich Kholodov. Curriculum Vitae
• Kholodov, Dmitry - an article in the Lentapedia . year 2012.
• Details of the investigation of the Kholodov case
• Chronology of the "case of Kholodov" on Lenta.ru
• Speech of the public prosecutor at the trial of the murder of Kholodov
• Evgeny Dodolev . “Forty days. Twenty-seven Years ” // “ New Look ” : newspaper. - Moscow, 1994. - No. 94 (November 26) . - S. 02 .