Murder of Galina Starovoitova ordered by Liberal Democratic Party MP Vyacheslav Shevchenko, Novaya Gazeta Europe reports

The mastermind behind the 1998 murder of politician and human rights defender Galina Starovoitova was Vyacheslav Shevchenko, a former member of parliament for the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia who was killed in Cyprus in 2004. Novaya Gazeta Europe reported on the development, citing newly obtained legal testimony given by Yuri Kolchin, who in 2005 was convicted of organizing Starovoitova’s assassination.

Kolchin testified in March 2023, five months after his release from the penal colony where he had spent 20 years for “infringement on the life of a public figure.” Novaya Gazeta Europe claims that investigators had known Shevchenko’s name long before Kolchin’s release — according to Kolchin’s account, he had already testified against Shevchenko to FSB officers back in 2010–2011.

Shevchenko became a State Duma deputy in 1995. According to the report, he secured his spot on the LDPR list for $300,000. Shevchenko had ties to the Tambovskaya organized crime group, owned luxury real estate in St. Petersburg, and ran several businesses, including the Golden Dolls casino, the Grand Palace boutique mall, and the confectionery brands Sever and Metropol.

Among other things, the MP was known for organizing concerts of little-known performers who appeared under the names of famous Western artists such as The Prodigy and Pet Shop Boys. He was also notorious for threatening and extorting money from journalists who exposed the scheme. Starovoitova learned about one such episode and accused Shevchenko of extortion, prompting him to leave Russia.

According to Yuri Kolchin’s testimony, Shevchenko ordered the killing of Starovoitova in early November 1998, calling the planned crime “a death sentence for treason and criminal activity aimed at destroying Russia.”

Galina Starovoitova was murdered on the night of November 20–21, 1998. Officially, the mastermind has still not been named. The main suspect in the case is Vladimir Barsukov, the leader of the Tambovskaya gang, who was reportedly associated with Shevchenko during the LDPR deputy’s lifetime.