A Turkish policeman in plain clothes over the body of the Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov he killed. Burhan Ozbilici Photos

Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov, who died in Turkey, became the eighth Russian diplomat killed in the last 10 years. Foreign Ministry employees are taken hostage, they are attacked by robbers, they become victims of political provocations, and sometimes property disputes.

One of the most famous attacks on Russian diplomats in recent history It was committed in Iraq V 2003 year during the Second Gulf War. During the evacuation from Iraq to Syria near Fallujah, a convoy of the Russian diplomatic mission came under fire from American armored vehicles. Five diplomats were wounded, including the ambassador himself.

The driver of Titorenko's car, Vladimir Arkhipov, received the most severe injuries. He had to be left in a hospital in Fallujah. Later, Titorenko, having recovered from a wound in his arm, returned for him from Syria.

Titorenko claimed that american soldiers deliberately opened fire on the diplomats. The ambassador noted that on the way from Baghdad to the Syrian border, the convoy was stopped several times and tried to inspect. According to various unconfirmed versions, Russian diplomats took out the archives of Saddam Hussein's government from Baghdad.

In 2006, the US Joint Command tried to justify the attack on Russian diplomats by allegedly saying that a Russian agent at the headquarters of the US Central Command in Doha (Qatar) was passing intelligence on the plans of the US command to the Russian embassy in Iraq, after which Titorenko passed this information to the Iraqis.

8 years after the attack in Iraq, Ambassador Titorenko was attacked in Qatar. IN 2011 At Doha airport, the customs officers wanted to force the ambassador to present the diplomatic bag for inspection. Qatari police and airport security officials tried to take away the diplomatic correspondence by force, but the mail was defended. As a result, Titorenko received an eye injury. The diplomat underwent three operations to eliminate the rupture and detachment of the retina. Two other employees of the Russian embassy were also injured. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the Foreign Ministry's decision to lower the level of relations with Qatar. This attack was linked to international intrigues around the beginning civil war in Syria.

In March 2005 years in the capital Sweden In Stockholm, local leftists and migrants from the World Intifada organization, protesting against the war in Chechnya, burned the car of the head of the Russian diplomatic mission in this country. None of the embassy workers were hurt.

2006 the year was clouded death of five Russian diplomats in Iraq. In the El Mansour area, militants attacked a car with diplomats. A Chevrolet Tahoe SUV with diplomatic numbers did not reach the embassy for about 400 meters when a passenger car and a minibus blocked it at the intersection. The militants opened fire on the Russians. Foreign Ministry officer Vitaly Titov was seriously wounded. The militants threw him onto the road, and he died in the arms of the embassy guards before the doctors arrived. The remaining passengers of the SUV were abducted by militants. The third secretary of the embassy, ​​Fyodor Zaitsev, and members of the diplomatic mission, Rinat Agliulin, Anatoly Smirnov, and Oleg Fedoseev, were in the hands of the terrorists. All of them then executed.

In the same year in Kenya The robbers attacked the car in which the Ambassador of the Russian Federation Valery Egoshkin was traveling. At 50 kilometers from Nairobi, a Negro boy jumped out on the road in front of his car and the ambassador stopped so as not to crush him. It turned out to be a trap: bandits with machetes rushed from the thickets to the car. The diplomat was injured, but survived, the robbers were detained.

In autumn 2006, four Russian diplomats were beaten outside a cafe in the capital Macedonia Skopje. All of them were seriously injured, the attackers were not found.

IN 2007 year in Burundi local soldiers shot the Russian ambassador Vladimir Rashitko. The official authorities of this country justified themselves by the fact that a car with diplomatic plates drove through several checkpoints without stopping, after which they immediately opened fire on it at the next army checkpoint.

IN 2011 year in Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif Russian diplomat Pavel Yershov was wounded during a Taliban attack on a UN mission.

IN 2013 Russian Vice-Consul Dmitry Virshenev and his wife were shot dead in the capital of Abkhazia, Sukhum. As the couple drove out of the garage, an unidentified man approached the driver's door and opened fire with a pistol through the half-open window. The diplomat was killed, his wife was seriously wounded. The crime was committed on the fifth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and Abkhazia. The diplomat worked as the first secretary of the Russian embassy in this republic.
https://newdaynews.ru/policy/589235.html

Have Russian ambassadors been killed before?

Yes / One of the most famous assassination attempts was the attack on the Russian embassy in Tehran in 1829, as a result of which Russian ambassador, famous writer and the author of the comedy "Woe from Wit" Alexander Griboyedov. A fanatical crowd broke into the territory of the diplomatic mission and massacred its employees and Armenians who were hiding on the territory.

In June 1927, the Soviet ambassador to Warsaw, Pyotr Voikov, was shot dead on the railway station platform by the terrorist Boris Koverda. The killer was sentenced to life hard labor, but after 10 years he was released under an amnesty.

Another famous diplomat, who died as a result of the assassination attempt - Vatslav Vorovsky, who at one time held the post of plenipotentiary in Italy. During a trip to the Lausanne Conference in 1923, he was killed by a former White Guard officer Maurice Konradi, who was acquitted by a jury. Vorovsky's wife died of nervous shock after the murder.

• The murder of the Russian ambassador Alexander Griboyedov in Tehran (Persia) on January 30 (February 11), 1829
• The assassination of the Soviet plenipotentiary

In Ankara, a Turkish police officer shot and killed Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov. The murder happened at the opening of the exhibition. Associated Press photographer Burhan Ozbiliji captured the most famous shots the killers. After Ozbiliji sent the photos to the editorial office, and the operation to "neutralize" the officer ended, the reporter told how he ended up at the exhibition and what happened there.

According to the photographer, he accidentally got to the exhibition "Russia through the eyes of a traveler: from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka" - and, of course, he assumed that this would be a completely routine event, reports.

Burkhan Ozbiliji looked in there on his way home from the editorial office.

As Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov began his speech, Burkhan Ozbiliji moved closer to take a picture of him. At that moment, shots rang out and panic began.

"The body of the ambassador was lying on the floor just a few meters from me. I did not see blood; I think he could have been wounded in the back. It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened: a man died right in front of me; life left (him - Ed .) in front of my eyes," Ozbiliji recalls.

According to the photographer, at first he did not understand why the shooting began; he suggested that the shooter could be a "Chechen fighter". Only later Ozbiliji realized that the killer was shouting about the Syrian Aleppo, in the bombing of which Russian aircraft participated.

“Of course, I was scared and I knew how dangerous it could be if he turned in my direction. But I got a little closer and filmed him while he intimidated the desperate captives. This is how I reflected: “I am here. Even if I get hurt or killed, I am a journalist. I need to do my job. I can escape without taking photos. But in this case, I will then have nothing to answer the question of why I did not take pictures," he said.

According to the AP photographer, he was surprised that the shooter, on the one hand, was excited, and on the other hand, he was perfectly in control of himself. As Burkhan Ozbiliji recalls, the killer shouted at the frightened visitors to leave. In the end, the guards ordered everyone to leave the premises, the police entered and shot the murderer of the ambassador.

“When I returned to the office and started looking through the photos, I was shocked that the killer was standing behind the ambassador while he was speaking. Like a friend or a security guard,” the photographer shares his impressions.

As UNIAN reported, on December 19 in Ankara, at the opening of the photo exhibition "Russia through the eyes of the Turks", an armed man shot at the Russian Ambassador to Turkey, Karlov. He

The work of a diplomat is not the performance of honorable and pleasant duties, but a service often associated with a risk to life.

In the main building of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there is a Memorial Board, on which the names of diplomats who died in the line of duty are immortalized.

An attack on an ambassador-level diplomat is a case out of the ordinary. Such actions can bring relations between countries to the brink of military conflict.

However, in the last 10 years alone, Russian ambassadors have been attacked twice.

On August 20, 2006, there was an attack on Russian Ambassador to Kenya Valery Egoshkin two unknowns on the highway. One of them stabbed the ambassador in the back. The Russian diplomat was seriously injured, but doctors saved his life. After undergoing treatment, Valery Egoshkin continued to work at his post.

On November 29, 2011, numerous injuries were inflicted Head of the Russian Diplomatic Mission in Qatar Vladimir Titorenko and two embassy staff accompanying him at Doha airport (Qatar). Despite the permission of the Qatari Foreign Ministry to transport diplomatic mail in accordance with the Vienna Convention, representatives of the airport security, customs and police insisted on scanning the diplomatic bag through an X-ray machine. After protests by Titorenko, force was used against him. Due to the injuries, the diplomat underwent three operations to close the gap and detach the retina.

March 7, 2012 President Dmitry Medvedev due to the incident, by his decree, thereby lowering the level of diplomatic relations between the countries.

Doom Andrey Karlov in Ankara on December 19, 2016 will go down in the history of domestic diplomacy as one of its darkest pages.

February 11, 1829. Assassination of Russian Ambassador to Persia Alexander Griboyedov

February 11, 1829 in Tehran, a crowd of religious fanatics attacked the residence of the Russian ambassador. According to the testimony of Persian dignitaries, about 100 thousand people were at the embassy that day. Anticipating such a development, Russian Ambassador Alexander Griboyedov sent a note to the Shah the day before the attack, stating that due to constant threats, he was forced to ask his government to withdraw his mission from Persia.

The attackers were resisted by the Cossacks guarding the embassy, ​​and Griboyedov himself. 37 people who were in the embassy were killed, including the ambassador himself, the author of the famous comedy Woe from Wit. Griboyedov's body was so mutilated that it was difficult to identify him.

The Shah of Persia sent an embassy to Petersburg headed by his grandson, Prince Khozrev-Mirza. In compensation for the spilled blood, he brought Nicholas I rich gifts, among them was the Shah diamond. Today, this 88.7-carat diamond of Indian origin is kept in the Diamond Fund in Moscow.

Emperor Nicholas I accepted the gifts and announced: "I consign the ill-fated Tehran incident to eternal oblivion."

May 10, 1923. Assassination of the Plenipotentiary of the RSFSR in Italy Vatslav Vorovsky

Russian revolutionary Vatslav Vorovsky became one of the first Soviet diplomats. Vorovsky, who since 1921 served as the plenipotentiary of the RSFSR in Italy, took part in the Genoa Conference in 1922, and in 1923 joined the Soviet delegation at the Lausanne Conference.

Plenipotentiary of the RSFSR in Italy Vatslav Vorovsky. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org

On May 10, 1923, Vorovsky was killed in the restaurant of the Cecile Hotel in Lausanne. former White Guard officer Maurice Konradi. Having shot Vorovsky and wounded two of his assistants, Conradi gave the revolver to the maitre d' with the words: "I did a good deed - the Russian Bolsheviks destroyed the whole of Europe ... This will benefit the whole world."

The Conradi case and accomplice of Arkady Polunin heard in the federal court of Switzerland. The defenders, when considering the case, focused not on the fact of the murder, but on the “criminal essence” of the Bolshevik regime. This approach bore fruit - the jury acquitted Konradi by a majority of nine to five votes.

Vatslav Vorovsky was buried on Red Square in Moscow along with his wife, who died from a nervous shock after the murder.

Soviet-Swiss diplomatic relations after the assassination of Vorovsky and the acquittal of his killer were restored only in 1946.

June 7, 1927. Assassination of the USSR Plenipotentiary in Poland Piotr Voikov

On June 7, 1927, Soviet Ambassador Pyotr Voikov arrived at the station in Warsaw, where a train with Soviet diplomats who worked in England, who left London after the break in diplomatic relations, was supposed to arrive. At about 9 am, an unknown person on the platform opened fire on the Soviet plenipotentiary. An hour later, Peter Voikov died from his injuries.

Terrorist who shot Voikov turned out to be 20-year-old White emigrant Boris Koverda. When asked why he shot, Koverda replied: "I avenged Russia, for millions of people."

A Polish court sentenced him to life hard labor, but granted the President of Poland the right to pardon Koverda. First, the sentence for the murderer of Voikov was reduced from life to 15 years, and after 10 years in prison, Koverda was released. During the Second World War, according to some reports, Koverda collaborated with the Nazis, then, after several years of wandering around Europe, he left for the United States, where he died in 1987 at the age of 79.

Pyotr Voikov was buried in Red Square in Moscow.

December 19, 2016. Assassination of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov

December 19, 2016 participated in the opening of the exhibition "Russia through the eyes of a traveler: from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka" at the Center for Contemporary Art in Ankara. When Karlov finished his welcoming speech, an unknown person began to shoot the diplomat in the back.

According to witnesses, the assailant shouted: “This is revenge for Aleppo. We die there, you die here."

The Russian ambassador, who was taken to the hospital, died of his wounds. The attacker, who wounded three more people, was killed by security forces.

According to available this moment information, the terrorist turned out to be 22-year-old policeman Mevlut Mert Altintash. He graduated from the police school in Izmir. For two and a half years, the young man served in the special forces in Ankara. According to some reports, Altintash was dismissed from service after failed attempt overthrow of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

07:55 — REGNUM On the evening of August 23, presumably from heart attack Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia to Sudan Mirgayas Shirinsky dies . The death of the diplomat was confirmed by the Russian Embassy in this country.

Death occurred while swimming in the pool at the ambassador's residence in Khartoum. The police are not considering the version of the murder: a preliminary investigation showed that the death was natural.

The Russian diplomat probably died of an acute heart attack. Shirinsky's body will be sent to Russia.

The ambassador was 62 and had been in Sudan since December 2013. Prior to that, he was Russia's ambassador to Rwanda for seven years.

This is the sixth death of Russian diplomats in Last year and the fifth from natural causes. In May 2016, Russian Charge d'Affaires in Ukraine Andrey Vorobyov died suddenly in Moscow. The cause of death of the diplomat was a stroke. He was appointed to the position of Charge d'Affaires in February 2014.

On July 28, 2016, Sergei Toropov became the Charge d'Affaires of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, and on November 16 of the same year he was replaced by Alexander Lukashik.

Two weeks later, the Russian consul in Greece Andrei Malanin passed away. The causes of death of the 55-year-old diplomat were also natural, the Russian Foreign Ministry said: his body was found in an apartment in Athens.

In January 2017, the author of books, publicist, translator from English and Hindi, Russian Ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin died in New Delhi. Prior to India, he headed the Russian embassies in Nepal and Sweden, and was also director of the Department of Linguistic Support of the Russian Foreign Ministry. He returned to India in 2009 (before that, he was an ambassador from 1999 to 2004).

Kadakin died as a result of illness. On August 18, 2017, Deputy Director of the General Secretariat of the Russian Foreign Ministry Nikolai Kudashev was appointed as the new Ambassador of Russia to India.

On February 20, 2017, a Russian diplomat, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN in New York, Russian representative to the UN Security Council Vitaly Churkin passed away in New York. He was 65 years old. On July 26, Vasily Nebenzya, who previously held the post of Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, was appointed the new Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN.

Then the Russian Foreign Ministry recalled Ambassador Mikhail Zurabov. Since June 2016, Andrey Vorobyov, Charge d'Affaires of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, died in Kyiv; Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov was shot dead in Turkey; the Russian consul Malanin died in Greece; Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin died in India; Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin died in New York.

The expert spoke about Russian-Sudanese relations

Russian Ambassador to Sudan Mirgayas Shirinsky died at his residence in Khartoum. Many foreign media drew attention to the fact that the death of Shirinsky is the fourth case in eight months when Russian high-ranking diplomats pass away.

As stated at a press briefing official representative Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, Russian Ambassador to Sudan Mirgayas Mirgayasovich Shirinsky died on August 23 in Khartoum. According to the Russian embassy, ​​everything happened around 6 pm local time. “The Russian ambassador was found at his residence with signs of an acute heart attack. The Embassy staff, who were at the residence at that moment, called a doctor. But, unfortunately, it was not possible to save him.

According to information received from the Sudanese capital, the diplomat was found in the pool at his residence.

According to media reports, the Sudanese police rule out the possibility of murder as the cause of death of the diplomat. "He was found dead in the swimming pool at his residence," police spokesman Omar al-Mokhtar told AFP. “Preliminary investigation shows that death was due to natural causes.”

The death of Ambassador Shirinsky, alas, is not the first in the list of our diplomats who went to recent months from life. Recall that on December 20 last year, Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov was killed in Ankara. On January 26 of this year, Russian Ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin died. And on February 20, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN, died in New York.

Mirgayas Mirgayasovich Shirinsky was 62 years old. He has been in diplomatic work since 1977 after graduating from MGIMO. In the early nineties, he worked as a Minister-Counselor of the Russian Embassy in Yemen, was the Consul General of Russia in Jeddah ( Saudi Arabia). In 2001-2002, he worked as Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to UNESCO, and from December 2002 to December 2006, he was Deputy Director of the Historical and Documentary Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry. At the end of 2006, he was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Rwanda. And since December 2013, he became Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Sudan. He was married and had two sons.

The Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in connection with the death of the diplomat, said that Shirinsky’s “friendly and at the same time professional approach” helped develop relations between Moscow and Khartoum: “He communicated with Sudanese from all walks of life and from all regions of the country.”

“I learned with regret about the departure of Ambassador Shirinsky,” says Alexander TKACHENKO, head of the Center for the Study of North Africa and the Horn of Africa at the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, director of the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies. - A long time ago, when I was working in one of the Arab countries, Shirinsky began his diplomatic activity. It was a "cap" acquaintance, but I remember it well. We were all quite young back then...

– And what is the role of Sudan in the system international relations Russia?

– This country, due to a number of circumstances, is one of those states that have attracted quite a lot of attention from the world community over the past decades. This is one of largest countries How Arab world and the African continent. And despite the pretty low level socio-economic development, due to the possession of unique natural resources and special geostrategic position it occupies a prominent niche in the system of international relations. Sudan, after gaining independence in 1956, experienced a difficult period in its history. Quite versatile relations were developing between the USSR and Sudan - and the prospects for their development were quite impressive in terms of certain criteria. But, unfortunately, not everything turned out the way it seemed for the period of Sudan's independence. For example, in 1971 an attempt was made to overthrow President Nimeiri, which ended in a bloody drama. They were accused of the coup former executives communist parties and trade union leaders - and executed. Relations between Soviet Union and Sudan have been corrupted. But after a rather long cooling time, they received a new impulse to restore what was before. This trend continued into the 2000s. I note that the course of Sudan, like many developing countries Africa after graduation cold war did not quite fit into the guidelines outlined by the world community. History of Sudan in the 2000s abounded in conflicts - for example, between the Islamic North and, relatively speaking, the Christian South (this long war ended with the declaration of independence South Sudan, but problems remain) or in Darfur or other areas. In these very difficult conditions, Sudan demonstrated a desire to develop relations with Russia, including trade and economic ones. The trade turnover between our countries is small, there is an international embargo on arms supplies to Sudan. In a word, the role of Sudan today in Russia's foreign economic relations, to put it mildly, is small, although both Khartoum and Moscow are making efforts to establish normal trade relations, they are supported by the exchange of delegations. Continues cultural exchange, humanitarian contacts. Of course, Russia has a negative attitude towards armed conflicts in the region and is making its own contribution to humanitarian aid Sudan.