Killer tourists: how Kazakh special services have alleged links to hit on journalist Aidos Sadykov

Ukrainian article of the week published in the 42th edition of the "What about Ukraine" newsletter on August 22nd, 2024. The article was written by Rustem Khalilov for Ukrainska Pravda and was translated for n-ost by Tetiana Evloeva.

At noon on 18 June 2024, two married Kazakh journalists, Aidos and Natalia Sadykovs, were driving their Subaru to their flat in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kyiv, which they had been renting for nine years. Aidos was behind the wheel as they entered the residential area and moved slowly past the 5-storey brick buildings. The front of their building was 100 metres ahead.

As Aidos was making the last turn to the left, Natalia saw in the corner of her eye a man wearing a peaked cap and sunglasses. He was holding a gun with a silencer, aimed at their car.

“It was utterly surreal,” recalls Natalia. “We almost passed that turn and it even crossed my mind that he would miss, because we were already past him. I screamed: ‘Aidos, duck!’”

However, her husband wasn’t fast enough. The bullet broke through their car window and hit Sadykov in the head. No second shot was fired.

From day one, the doctors gave Natalia a heads-up: there was no hope for him, with the injuries he sustained. Two weeks later, on 2 July, Aidos passed away in his hospital bed. Natalia believes her husband’s last days in the ICU was a chance to prepare herself for the loss.

When announcing her husband’s demise on her Facebook page, Natalia added that Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of Kazakhstan, was responsible for his murder.

She made this claim for two reasons. Firstly, the Ukrainian police disclosed the names of the two suspects in the case, and they turned out to be citizens of Kazakhstan who fled Ukraine following the assassination. Secondly, Kazakh journalists discovered that both suspects were (or had been) affiliated with the Kazakh Security Forces.

At that time, the Ukrainian media had been full of reports of people being killed in the war with Russia, so the news of Aidos Sadykov’s assassination was underreported. However, this is more than a Kazakh political journalist (and former politician) catching a bullet. Today, this looks like the government of another country feeling free to settle its grudges on Ukrainian soil, by taking out an inconvenient person, and doing their best to hush-up this tragedy — all during wartime when any suspicious persons entering the country should have the utmost attention of the domestic National Security officers.

Ukrainska Pravda shares Aidos Sadykov’s story and how he was assassinated.

Special Operation Kazakh-style

This may not have been the first attempt on Sadykov’s life. Natalia recalls events that skipped her attention at the time. The first incident occurred two weeks prior to the hit. During a blackout, the Sadykovs’ car alarm went off, near their apartment building. People with flashlights were circling the vehicle. It is common in such cases for the owner to go outside and check their car, however Aidos chose to stay home.

A few years before, someone set his car on fire right in a private parking lot. The parking guard called him and described the situation, and Sadykov replied: “Let it burn, then.”

Another incident happened when they found one of the tyres of their car was flat. Aidos pumped up the wheel and drove to the car service station, where the staff checked the wheel and verified there was no damage.

“Someone deflated that tyre to buy some time, to be able, say, to approach and kill him while he was pumping that wheel,” muses Natalia. “But on that very day, a car hit an elderly lady next door to us, and the police were involved [and around] — so maybe they scared off the perpetrators.”

The third time, there was nothing to deter the assassins. Aidos once said that if he was to be murdered, he wanted to at least bite off his assailant’s finger. However, he never even had time to duck at mid-day on 18 June.

Two days after the attack, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office served the charges of attempted homicide (later changed to contract murder), listing two citizens of Kazakhstan, 33-year-old Meiram Karataev and 36-year-old Altai Zhakanbaev, and issued an international warrant for their arrest.

The Ukrainian National Police in Kyiv believe that the operation went as follows:

On 2 June, Karataev and Zhakanbaev arrived in Kyiv, rented a flat, and bought a car. After that, they placed Sadykov under surveillance, keeping tabs on his home, his workplace, his usual commutes, schedule and social circle. They bought a gun, ammunition and a silencer from dealers who are yet to be discovered. A week before the attempted assassination, these “tourists from Kazakhstan” moved to another rental flat, which was a 20-minute walk from the Sadykovs’ place.

On 18 June at noon, Karataev and Zhakanbaev drove to the neighbourhood where the Sadykovs lived and waited. In 45 minutes, they saw Aidos’s Subaru. After that, Karataev took the gun and went to intercept the vehicle on foot, passing between the residential buildings. As soon as the car turned, the killer approached it and fired. As he fled the scene, he dumped the handgun near the fence of the Kyiv Zoo.

The suspects used their real passports to both enter and leave Ukraine, and managed to flee the country on the day of the assassination. As reported by a Telegram channel Moldova: Aktualno, citing their undisclosed insiders from Moldova’s Border Guard, Karataev and Zhakanbaev left Chisinau on 18 June, boarding a flight headed for Antalya.

There was another ID in this case, a Romanian passport in the name of Alex Kim, allegedly forged, which Zhakanbaev used in Kyiv when booking accommodation. Natalia Sadykova obtained the photo of this ID from one of the owners of the flat rented to the two Kazakh men. While the landlady considered the renters pretty normal, their lack of any luggage seemed unusual.

When a Border Guard finds a foreigner entering Ukraine suspicious for some reason, they can initiate a “second-tier control procedure”, which means running a background check through several law enforcement databases, and can conduct an interview, and even check if the person visiting has sufficient funds to cover their stay.

It is unclear whether Karataev and Zhakanbaev underwent additional checks. When approached by reporters from Ukrainska Pravda, the State Border Guards refused to disclose that information citing privacy regulation.

The day after the shooting, the President of Kazakhstan reacted. Speaking at a grand ceremony, Tokayev said that Kazakhstan had strengthened the rule of law, which directly concerned the crime against Sadykov. The head of state assured the public that Kazakh officials were eager to join the investigation to help uncover the truth.

Back then, the killers' identities were yet to be uncovered, as the Ukrainian National Police hadn’t released the names of the suspects and classified the crime as a contract hit. As soon as those details came to light, the Office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General drafted the extradition documents.

However, Kazakhstan made it clear that they had zero intention to extradite the suspects. The official stance was voiced by Maulen Ashimbayev, chairman of the senate of Kazakhstan: “Regardless of this specific situation, it’s a matter of principle that Kazakhstan never hands our citizens over to any other nations.”

At the time, they had every opportunity to hand over a suspect. On 21 June, Zhakanbaev (the alleged accomplice, not the shooter) approached law enforcement officers in Kazakhstan. According to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Kazakhstan, the officers detained him and questioned him in connection to the attempted murder. The whereabouts of Karataev remains unknown.

“This is quite interesting,” says Irina Petrushova, editor-in-chief of Respublika, a Kazakh media outlet. “We were even slightly surprised that the reaction was so swift. However, there was silence after the Ukrainian Law Enforcement made the suspects' names public. Now we can’t help but sit here and wonder, what that was about. I mean, they could have at least said something, just for the sake of decency. We even filed a journalists’ request with the office of the Prosecutor General in Kazakhstan, and to a plethora of other agencies, and every single one of those agencies only sent us a non-committal reply that the investigation was ongoing. We can’t even get them to state if the suspect is still under arrest. Maybe he has been walking free for quite a while now.”

However, the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General also kept eerily quiet after their announcement of preparing the extradition papers. There was no news on that case whatsoever, nor was there any response to Ukrainska Pravda’s request to comment.

Meanwhile, journalists uncovered information on the occupation of the suspects, which added a twist to the story.

Who Pulled the Trigger?

‘Marksmanship Plus Endurance’ says the July 2017 headline on the news page of Kazakhstan Physical Culture and Sports Society Dynamo. The article under that headline covers a shooting competition for several law enforcement agencies.

“The judges highly praise the training of the regional special forces officers, in particular, the Special Training Agency. Meiram Karataev, a first lieutenant in the National Police, proved to be the best shooter in the individual classification, showing his high skills and mastery of the weapon,” the article reads.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior of Kazakhstan reported that Karataev left the police service back in 2019, and is not currently an officer.

If so, what was the sharpshooter doing in the meantime?

The editorial office of Radio Azzattyq, the Kazakh regional office for Radio Liberty, ran Karataev’s mobile number through Getcontact, an App recording how the users of the program sign each other’s numbers when saving them in their contacts. It turned out that many users listed Karataev as ‘special forces’, ‘sniper’ and ‘SWAT’. Several users saved his number as ‘Meiram Aristan’, and about 20 people listed him as ‘Meiram A’.

‘Aristan’ is the old name of the special unit affiliated to the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan (KNB). Today, its name is shortened to just the first letter, A.

The journalists also ran Altai Zhakanbaev’s number through the app. Various users listed him as ‘Altai Syrbar KNB’, ‘Altai KNB’ and ‘Altai Syr’.

‘Syrbar’ is the shortened name for the Foreign Intelligence Service of Kazakhstan, which is affiliated with the KNB.

So this is what we can piece together from indirect evidence: two KNB officers (one of them a sniper) arrive in Kyiv, kill Aidos Sadykov, and return home.

But why could the Kazakh authorities be so displeased with Mr. Sadykov?

The Sadykovs: active critics of the regime

Before getting into journalism, Aidos Sadykov had been a Kazakh politician and a member of several parties in opposition to former president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s policies. In 2010, he joined the protests demanding Nazarbayev’s resignation. He also went on to create trade unions at Chinese-owned enterprises in his country.

In 2010, Aidos was sentenced by a Kazakh court to two years in prison on charges of hooliganism. According to the prosecutors, Aidos beat up a passerby, and when the police arrived, he allegedly tried to harm himself. The defence attorneys petitioned to include in the case file a video filmed a few minutes after Sadykov’s arrest, showing the alleged victim was unharmed, while Sadykov himself appeared injured. The judge declined.

In 2014, criminal charges of slander were laid against Sadykov’s wife Natalia, due to her piece on strife in public procurement, despite Respublika publishing the article under an alias. That was when the Sadykovs sought political asylum in Ukraine and settled in Kyiv.

In 2018, the Sadykovs launched a YouTube channel Бәсе (Bäse), where they covered social and political issues in Kazakhstan. The channel used footage they received from their subscribers, with the project’s authors sharply criticising the country’s leadership, and supporting a variety of protests taking place in the Republic of Kazakhstan. While it wasn’t journalism in its refined form, it took the form of a political stance.

“He was in contact with people in Kazakhstan, 24/7,” shares Natalia Sadykova. “People from all over the country wrote to him, sharing their problems. He facilitated strike movements (while staying in Kyiv). People turned to him, and he gave them step-by-step instructions, prepared them mentally, helped them refine their demands, and led them through the process. He was planning to replace the ruling regime and return to Kazakhstan, to build the country as he dreamt it, you know?”

Over the years, the Sadykovs’ YouTube channel gained a million subscribers. According to Natalia, over 90 percent of them were from Kazakhstan. For comparison, the country’s entire population is about 20 million.

“First of all — believe me, for Kazakhstan, that’s a lot. I mean, really a lot,” explains Irina Petrusheva. “Secondly, the audience of this channel consists of people capable of actually protesting against the authorities, and under the right circumstances, capable of taking to the streets.”

Kazakh law enforcement agencies “in complete disarray”

Natalia Sadykova is certain that in authoritarian Kazakhstan, with its rigid system of vertical power, the Secret Service couldn't order a hit on someone residing abroad without the knowledge of President Tokayev, who succeeded Nazarbayev in 2022, while retaining the same power structures.

But would the Kazakh authorities really take such a short-sighted risk and send their law enforcement officers to carry out the assassination, rather than hire someone from Ukraine?

Natalia believes it’s a lot more risky to reach out to organised crime in a country that’s currently at war because the special service would give the actual perpetrators more attention, given the circumstances.

Irina Petrusheva has another explanation to offer: the people who organised Sadykov’s assassination were certain that Ukrainian law enforcement would be unable to trace the actual perpetrators.

“The Kazakh law enforcement agencies are in complete disarray, discord and uncertainty,” she says “During an intensive purge of the personnel, many professionals were fired. So it’s quite probable that people in the Special Service who organised all that had no clue that in today’s world, technologies can swiftly pinpoint the whereabouts of each person and find out what they are doing.”

However, it’s worth mentioning yet another name when setting out leads for possible masterminds of this crime.

Oleksiy Bobrovnikov, a documentary writer who collaborated with Sadykov on a project about Russia's hybrid tactics in other countries a year ago, points to videos uploaded to the Bäse YouTube channel last year. Those videos covered truckloads of illegal goods smuggled from China to Russia through Kazakhstan, where he mentioned the name of the curator of the process, Haji Hajiev.

After those videos were uploaded in March 2023, a stranger approached Sadykov in the parking lot of a mall in Kyiv, from the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan (KNB). The stranger offered Sadykov 5,000 dollars to delete videos on Haji Hajiev from his channel, which Sadykov refused to do. Instead, Aidos contacted the local law enforcement. He did not believe this was an attempt at bribery, but a demonstration that members of the Kazakh opposition can be reached even in Kyiv during a full-scale war.

Still, that was more than a year ago. Over the past few months, the Bäse Channel was covering protests in Kazakhstan against President Tokayev and Russia’s influence in the country.

Kazakhstan: little world attention given to its human rights violations

The day after Sadykov was laid to rest in the Kyiv region, the Kazakh police detained about a dozen people who intended to gather in the centre of the western city of Zhanaozen to honour his memory.

According to Yevgeniy Zhovtis, director of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights, the situation regarding the freedom of media and the persecution of dissidents in Kazakhstan attracts little attention from the international community.

“Certain cases, of course, gather some sort of reaction,” claims Yevgeniy, “however, by and large, we are held in good standing [by the international community].”

The human rights advocate believes that compared to Russia, Belarus or Turkmenistan, the Republic of Kazakhstan is not so much about mass repression, but rather about targeted persecution. In his opinion, Kazakhstan is somewhat on the periphery of world politics, and thus the attention the Republic receives is respective to that consideration.

“Aidos Sadykov was someone who not only deserves more attention,” says Oleksiy Bobrovnikov, the documentaryist. “He was actually the only active researcher in Ukraine, an investigator of what was being done in this area (in Kazakhstan) by the proxies of the Kremlin. His work was of great worth.”

When Sadykov passed away, Bobrovnikov posted on his page on Facebook that the most dangerous thing about that death was the lack of attention from both the Ukrainian and world media.

Erfan Kudusov, a Kyiv restaurateur and a friend of Aidoses, who got to know the Sadykovs family the same year they fled Kazakhstan, mentions another danger:

“What do we face, then?” he asks. “Does that mean that any terrorist organisation or foreign power can bring their people into Ukraine and kill whoever they please?”