13 Oct 2026
Bellingcat: Russian FSB behind Georgian Khangoshvili’s murder in Berlin
Bellingcat, an investigative journalism website, writes that its months-long investigation, with The Insider and Der Spiegel, has uncovered that the assassination of Georgian citizen of Chechen origin Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin last August ‘was planned and organized by Russia’s FSB security agency,’ Agenda.ge reports
Bellincat says that the preparation for the murder was supervised directly by Eduard Bendersky, chairman of the Vympel Charitable Fund For Former FSB Spetsnaz Officers, and other senior members of the fund, ‘apparently to provide a veneer of deniability’.
However, we have determined that essential support for the operation — both for training the assassin and for issuance of false identity papers — was provided directly by the FSB and on the grounds of the FSB’s so-called Center of Special Operations.”
Bellingat states that both the FSB and Russian police were aware of the true identity of the detained killer but chose to lie to the German authorities by denying that Vadim Sokolov was a fake identity.
Russian authorities also attempted to scrub all public data relating to the killer’s true identity, as well as data linked to his immediate family.”
A veteran of the Second Chechen War (1999-2009), Khangoshvili, 40, was shot on August 23, 2019 in Berlin on his way to Friday prayers.
Zelimkhan Khangoshvili was a field commander during the war, this is why he was wanted and continuously persecuted by Russian police.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Khangoshvili was a terrorist.
18.02.2020 10:17
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