The BOURNE case. How nationalists committed murders because of political ambitions

Evgenia Khasis, an accomplice to the murders of a Moscow nationalist group, was released on November 28 after 16 years in prison. Her common-law husband and one of the founders of the "Militant Organization of Russian Nationalists" (BORN) Nikita Tikhonov is serving a life sentence. What the BOURNE gang is known for and what happened to its members is in the Izvestia article.

Nationalists with political ambitions

Nikita Tikhonov and Ilya Goryachev are named as the founders of the BORN nationalist group, which carried out the murders in 2008-2011. According to Goryachev, he and Tikhonov became friends in 2000, when they studied at the history departments of different universities. The students became close based on common interests, and in 2002 they visited Serbia together, where they met members of the nationalist movement Obraz.

• Tikhonov and Goryachev published the magazine "Russian Image", on the basis of which the nationalist movement of the same name was created in 2003-2004. According to Tikhonov, Goryachev became the ideologist and creator of BORN, who failed to officially register the "Russian Image" as a nationalist party.

• Political ambitions determined the activities of the BORN group — Goryachev presented it as the Russian equivalent of the Irish Republican Army, known for its terrorist actions. BORN members also killed on the grounds of national hatred, but unlike other nationalist groups, they committed high-profile murders to put pressure on the authorities.

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• Apart from Goryachev and Tikhonov, the members of the group were Evgenia Khasis, Alexey Korshunov, Alexander Parinov, Mikhail Volkov, Maxim Baklagin, Vyacheslav Isaev and Yuri Tikhomirov. Tikhonov, along with Volkov and Parinov, were previously members of the United Brigades – 88 and already had criminal experience. In particular, Mikhail Volkov was convicted in 2002 for participating in the pogrom at the Tsaritsyn market in Moscow, which killed three people, and Tikhonov and Parinov had been hiding from investigation since 2006 after the murder of anti-fascist Alexander Ryukhin.

Victims of the nationalists

• The nationalist organization has committed ten murders and three attempted murders. Most often, their victims were activists of the anti-fascist movement, and the crimes were committed almost in plain sight. In November 2009, anti-fascist and anarchist Ivan Khutorskoy was shot dead in the entrance of his house, and in 2010, the same group members shot dead federal court judge Eduard Chuvashov as he left his apartment.

• The most high-profile episode in the BOURNE crime story was a double murder: On January 19, 2009, in the center of Moscow, nationalists shot dead lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova. The crime was committed by Nikita Tikhonov and his common-law wife Evgenia Khasis.

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The reason for Markelov's murder was his professional activity: the lawyer often defended representatives of the anti-fascist movement, whom BORN considered his ideological enemies. Anastasia Baburova, who was involved in neo-Nazi youth movements in her journalistic activities, was shot dead in order to allegedly avoid leaving a witness to the crime.

• The murder of Markelov and Baburova has become resonant not only in Russia, but also abroad. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed his condolences to the families of the victims. The head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, posthumously awarded Markelov the medal "For Services to the Chechen Republic." The United States, the European Union and international human rights organizations condemned the murder.

Trials of the group's members

Tikhonov and Khasis were arrested on suspicion of murdering Markelov and Baburova in 2009. Ilya Goryachev, the founder of BORN, testified against them, who later disappeared abroad and retracted his words. Tikhonov fully admitted his guilt and was sentenced to life in prison, Khasis received 18 years in prison for complicity in murder.

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• In 2012, Tikhomirov was sentenced to ten years in prison for complicity in the murder of anti-fascist Ilya Japaridze. Isaev and Baklagin were arrested at the same time, and in 2015 they were sentenced to life in prison for the murders of Khutorsky, Chuvashov, and taxi driver Sos Khachikyan, as well as for the attempted murder of athlete Ramazan Nurichuev.

• Ilya Goryachev was detained and extradited to Russia in Belgrade in 2013. At the same time, Mikhail Volkov was detained and extradited to Ukraine. The trial dragged on for a year due to the fact that it was not possible to assemble a jury, but in 2015 the jury unanimously found Goryachev guilty of organizing five murders and illegal arms trafficking - he was sentenced to life in prison. Volkov received 24 years in prison for the murders of antifascist Fyodor Filatov and student Rasul Khalilov.

The role of Evgenia Khasis

• Evgenia Khasis was not charged with participating in a nationalist organization. Alexander Barkashov, the leader of the Russian National Unity (an organization listed by Rosfinmonitoring as involved in extremist activities or terrorism), stated that a person with such a surname could not join their ranks: her father is Jewish by nationality, and her mother is Tatar.

• Khasis and Tikhonov tried to get married in 2010, but the judge rejected the petition and refused to register their marriage. In April 2011, Tikhonov and Khasis faked suicide — according to the prosecution, this was done to arouse the pity of the jury and delay the trial.

• Khasis was initially charged with complicity in a double murder: She did not pull the trigger, but signaled Tikhonov when to start shooting at the victims. As a result, the prosecution only managed to prove Khasis' complicity in Markelov's murder and illegal arms trafficking. The defense unsuccessfully tried to appeal the verdict, first to the Supreme Court, and then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR found violations in the procedure, and Khasis' sentence was commuted from 18 to 17 years.

• The convict was serving time in a correctional colony in Mordovia. According to media reports, in 2024, Khasis wrote a statement to the Ministry of Defense and asked to go to the special operation zone in Ukraine. She later stated in an interview that she had completely changed her views and wanted to teach young people how to resist extremist propaganda.