Attack on City Council Member Olympic Related?

A disconcerting story just caught my attention as I was looking for a topic to write about today.  According to the anti-Russian 'Caucasian Knot,' Sochi City-Planning Councilman Valery Suchkov believes that an attack against him (he was hit by a car) on January 7 is directly related to his role as a vocal advocate for Sochi residents in the face of top-down edicts from Moscow as planning and building for the Olympic Games continues.  Suchkov, who was critical of the resettlement of locals to make way for Olympic building projects, the necessity of rerouting certain streets, etc., among other projects, remains hospitalized.  From the article:

Mr Suchkov was hospitalized with traumas on January 7 in Khosta. He was told that he had been hit by a car. Galina Suchkova, his wife, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the incident occurred not far from their house.

"Valery told me that some unknown people called him and asked [him to pick up]  some important package brought to him from Moscow," she said and added that the callers said that "they were from the post office and could not find their house; therefore, they asked him to go out to the road."

Valery Suchkov said that "an organized gang, liquidating unwanted public activists, human rights defenders and journalists who oppose and reveal corruption in Sochi and territorial bodies," operates in Sochi.

Unfortunately,  this is merely the latest in what has become a horrifying set piece in Russia: speak out against the government or government policy, prepare to be attacked, expect the government to condemn the attack while doing very little to find either the attackers or those who ordered the attacks.

Regrettably, Russia is now considered to be one of the most dangerous places in which to be an investigative journalist and Anna Politkovskaya, who reported for Novaya Gazeta on the Second Chechen war and was killed in 2006 for her exposes, remains the face of the trend.  The most recent incident, the brutal attack of Kommersant's Oleg Kashin, is believed to be tied to his reports on youth movements, as well as his digging into the proposed $8 billion road from Moscow to St. Petersburg that was to cut right through the famous Khimki forest.  There are at least two other journalists who are believed to have been attacked from exposing the corruption surrounding the construction or for covering the protests of the project.  Construction on the proposed highway has since been halted.

The Committee to Protect Journalists now believes that 52 journalists have been killed in Russia since 1992; the International Federation of Journalists' report, 'Partial Justice,' cites 300 deaths and disappearances of Russian Journalists since 1993.  Regardless of the exact figure, Russia is now considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world for investigative journalists.

Beyond that, as the above case Mr. Suchkov shows, even relatively obscure opposition figures face severe consequences for speaking out or highlighting controversial government plans and policies, especially as it concerns one of the most ambitious building projects in Russian history.  With more than $30 billion invested in Sochi, will principled objections be tolerated?  Sadly, the answer appears to be no.