The Geopolitics of a Dead Georgian in Germany

https://in.reuters.com/article/germany-georgia-chechnya-idINKBN1Y81J3

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was murdered on the streets of Berlin in August 2019 and for a time the story was 'big news'. The trial of the killer has dragged on and still appears occasionally in the media. The verdict was due in July 2021 and yet the trial has once more been extended. The verdict should come through before the end of the year and it's going to be a big story in the West – part of the ongoing anti-Russia campaign.

In this case it is likely the assassin was associated with the Russian intelligence services, likely the FSB, and some evidence points to the hand of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov which makes sense once you understand who Khangoshvili was.

Throughout 2019 and 2020 the story was being heavily pushed by outlets like NPR, CNN, and the Washington Post, all US media leaders in the anti-Russia campaign. And of course there are also outlets like the BBC which play their part in the larger English speaking world.

It's hardly surprising to think that a brute like Kadyrov would have someone killed and yet once again a big part of the story (from my vantage point) is the fact that the media is obscuring just who Khangoshvili really was. He was not merely some 'Georgian asylum seeker', but rather he was deeply connected to the Chechen Jihadist movement, the breakaway Ichkerian Republic that has been waging a war against Russia since the 1990's – and with considerable Western backing.

Khangoshvili is a Georgian name and while most Georgians fall within the sphere of Eastern Orthodoxy, some are Muslim and likewise there is a Muslim Chechen minority living in Georgia, many having fled there in the Nineteenth Century to escape Imperial Russian conquest of their homeland. Cultural ties and regional politics have afforded an opportunity as the Chechen fighters have long been able to operate out of Eastern Georgia and the Pankisi Gorge in particular. Khangoshvili was part of this element and along with some other Chechens he participated in the 2008 South Ossetia War, once again fighting against Moscow. The war was largely instigated by Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili who is a friend and asset to American intelligence and foreign policy hawks within Congress. In this case given the strange timing, the Georgian president may have gone rogue. That's never been clear, but the US certainly provided support and while Saakashvili seems wild and unprincipled at times, he's also known to be deeply enmeshed in US geopolitical schemes.

After spending some time holding political office in Ukraine, Saakashvili returned to Georgia a few weeks ago (October 2021). He was arrested and is currently staging a hunger strike.

Returning to Khangoshvili it can be understood as to why the governments in Moscow and Grozny would be after him and yet the media deliberately chose to obscure these facts and as always fails to provide any context. Simply listing him as a 'Georgian' is misleading.

As far as political murders go, they're hardly uncommon. Washington has many people murdered but it's more careful to cover its tracks and utilise proxies.

Although it must be said that regardless of who was behind Khangoshvili's killing, the narrative is already in place. If anything happens, Western governments and their media allies can simply 'plug in' to the already constructed and active narrative. They can immediately invoke previous instances even if they're unsubstantiated – a type of journalism they (and their fact-checkers) are quick to discredit when it's applied to US government policy and actions.

I have no doubt that Russian and Chechen government officials are outraged that men like Khangoshvili are allowed to walk openly in places like Turkey and Germany. For Americans, it would be like members of al Qaeda walking around freely in Russia. The US would be more than a little irritated and they would employ the media machine to make a stink.

Now here's the really 'funny' thing about the Khangoshvili incident – if the US had kidnapped him off the streets (via extraordinary rendition) and he had disappeared or died under torture in some unknown prison, or if he had been assassinated with a drone while in Turkey or Jordan – then all is well. It would be viewed as perfectly legitimate.

There's a real double standard and it must be remembered one of the great sins in the eyes of the American Establishment is to argue from the standpoint of moral equivalence. When America does something it's not the same as when other nations do it. This is American Exceptionalism. The Evangelicals add another sacral layer to the idea but even the secular expression of the doctrine has a deep (and deeply offensive) moral component to it.

The hypocrisy here stinks to the highest heaven. Kadyrov and Putin are murderers to be sure but those pointing the finger are also bathed in blood and have no moral standing to levy criticism.

And while I don't doubt this story, the fact that Bellingcat's fingerprints are all over it gives me reason to doubt – or at least doubt the way it's being framed.

While I must grant that Kadyrov or Putin could have ordered his death, I will also entertain the distinct possibility that he was killed by someone else and that the United States/NATO via their many proxies is looking to pin his death on the Russian state. The story has produced the desired diplomatic results and it's clearly part of the grand dossier being constructed – which in the end is a case for war. And the story isn't over, the trial drags on and there has been a concentrated effort to implicate the Russian FSB.

I'm also very curious as to why he was in Germany and apparently isolated. That at least raises the possibility that he had broken with his compatriots. Who can say? There are many reasons he might have been in Germany, but if he was on the outs with his brothers in arms, there's always the possibility that he would be removed for security reasons or viewed as a traitor. There are many possibilities. He may have been killed by agents of the Russian state but again, the nature of the media campaign leads me to wonder.

It also must be remembered this story and its framing is in the interest of elements within Washington that want to sabotage the German-Russia energy deal as represented by Nordstream-2. An outrageous assassination on German soil puts Angela Merkel (or her successor) in a difficult spot. There has to be a response and it's the hope of the American Establishment that it will play a role in souring Berlin-Moscow relations.