Last weekend, the FSB announced the establishment of the mastermind behind the assassination of the vice-governor of St. Petersburg, Mikhail Manevich, committed more than a quarter of a century ago, one of the most high-profile crimes even by the standards of the 1990s. According to the intelligence service, behind the execution of the official was an authoritative St. Petersburg businessman Vladimir Barsukov (Kumarin), the creator and leader of the Tambov criminal community, who had already been convicted of a number of especially serious crimes for 23.5 years. Barsukov’s lawyer expressed bewilderment at the new claim of the security forces against the client and suggested that already convicted persons could have slandered him in order to alleviate their fate. If the case goes to court and the businessman is found guilty, he faces a life sentence.
With an unexpected message about the disclosure of the murder of Mikhail Manevich committed in St. Petersburg in 1997, the FSB came out last Sunday. According to the intelligence service, the Chekists, together with the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, managed to unravel this criminal case thanks to the testimony given by the direct perpetrators of the crime. The FSB noted that “the involvement in the commission of the crime by two members of the St. Petersburg organized criminal group has been documented,” one of whom monitored the official’s place of residence and passed information about his movement to his accomplice. The second shot at the car in which the vice-governor was. The names of the performers have not yet been revealed.
The attempt on the life of Vice-Governor Mikhail Manevich, who headed the city property management committee of the administration of the Northern capital, was committed at about 9 am on August 18, 1997, when he, along with his wife Maria and a driver, were driving to work in Smolny.
A sniper fired at him from a Kalashnikov assault rifle with an optical sight (the weapon was thrown on the spot) from the attic of house No. 76 on Nevsky Prospekt. All eight bullets fired by him hit the roof of the car. Mikhail Manevich received three bullet wounds – in the neck and chest. All of them were fatal. This crime, the disclosure of which was initially thrown by the most experienced investigators and operatives, for a long time was “tried on” to a variety of organized crime groups and major bandits. Now the killers have confessed and, according to the FSB, they said that the crime was committed on the order of Vladimir Barsukov, who personally handed them the machine gun.
Lawyer Sergei Afanasiev, representing the interests of Vladimir Barsukov, told Kommersant that the FSB information came as a surprise to him. Mr. Afanasyev suggested that certain convicts could have given evidence against his client, who could have been promised early release or other concessions for this. “As I understand it, they are now in places of deprivation of liberty, they can now be promised everything, including release. And they suddenly remembered something after 25 years. And it is not clear why such a message was released: file charges first, get evidence from my client. The lawyer specified that at the moment none of the investigators had contacted him. Mr. Afanasiev noted that recently law enforcement agencies have been trying to connect his client with high-profile cases: “All these years they hung everything that was possible.”
It should be noted that Vladimir Barsukov (Kumarin), who was once called the “night master of St. Petersburg” by the media, has already appeared before the court several times. In 2009, the founder and leader of the Tambov organized crime group was sentenced to 14 years in prison for hostile takeovers. In 2016, he was given a sentence for organizing an assassination attempt on the co-owner of the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, Sergei Vasiliev, and in 2019, in the OPS case. Based on the total number of sentences passed, the total sentence imposed on Vladimir Barsukov now stands at 23.5 years. In addition, he is charged with involvement in the murder of State Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova in 1998 and the murders of two of his associates, Georgy Pozdnyakov and Yan Gurevsky, committed in 2000. If the businessman’s guilt is proven this time as well, he faces a life sentence.
Interestingly, in December 2021, another organizer of the Tambov OPS, Vyacheslav Drokov, who had previously been sentenced to 20.5 years in a strict regime colony, was released on parole from a colony in the Vologda Oblast.
