*On July 1, proceedings began in the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in the case of Timur Musaev, a Chechen native and owner of an Infiniti FX-35, who, after a road conflict in November last year, shot forklift owner Yevgeny Petrov in the face with a traumatic pistol (a non-lethal handgun firing rubber bullets). Petrov spent three months in the hospital, underwent two operations, and nearly lost sight in his right eye. Musaev fled the scene of the incident, but later, after learning that he had been placed on the wanted list, eventually turned himself in to the police accompanied by lawyers and representatives of the Chechen diaspora. ... Raisa Shakhtieva believes that the national question is to blame for everything. And that her son is incapable of shooting a person. “Could someone who almost completed a higher education really do such a thing?” she asked, leaving everyone bewildered. Her speech was emotional, disjointed, and repeatedly broke into tears. “The Second Chechen War—11 years ago we fled to Yekaterinburg.... I wanted him to study law. He enrolled in the Ural State Law Academy as a part-time student, but did not finish. I mortgaged my apartment, took out a loan, and bought him an Infiniti.”* www.uralweb.ru/news/n377751.html It’s simply astonishing. “We fled to Yekaterinburg; the national question is to blame for everything.” The war seems to have ended long ago. Chechnya is developing and growing richer before our eyes. Security is at the highest level. The republic has turned into a flourishing land. I don’t understand what is keeping Timur Musaev and Raisa Shakhtdieva in Sverdlovsk Region. They should have left for their homeland long ago—for that flourishing land where there is no national question, and where permission to shoot a forklift owner in the face can supposedly be obtained through the proper channels, simply by joining some kind of “Ramzan Club” (a sarcastic reference to Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya).
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