Amina Okuyeva, a Ukrainian citizen and ethnic Chechen who served as a volunteer soldier in the war against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine, was killed late on Oct. 30 in Hlevakha village, 10 kilometers southwest of Kyiv.
Okuyeva, 34, who was in a car with her husband, Adam Osmayev, died on a scene as a result of wounds. Her husband didn’t suffer life-threatening injuries, according to Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.
Investigators work at the site where Amina Okuyeva, the wife of a Chechen man accused by Russia of plotting to kill President Vladimir Putin, was shot dead in the town of Hlevakha, Ukraine Oct. 30. 2017 (Photo by Volodymyr Petrov)
The first assassination attempt on Okuyeva and Osmayev, a Chechen man whom Russian authorities accuse of plotting to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin, failed in Kyiv on June 1 after Okuyeva returned gunfire and wounded the assassin.
The would-be assassin introduced himself as journalist Alex Werner from the French newspaper Le Monde. Later the police identified the attacker as Artur Denisultanov-Kurmakayev. In the 1990s, Denisultanov-Kurmakayev was all but openly associated with a Chechen organized crime group operating in St. Petersburg, and he once appeared on Russian TV to speak as a representative of the organization.
Ukrainian authorities blamed the Russian intelligence services for the attack.
In 2007, the Russian authorities accused Osmayev of plotting to kill head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov. The case collapsed for lack of evidence and he moved to Ukraine.
In 2012, Osmayev was arrested in Ukraine and charged with possession of illegal explosives, damaging private property, and forgery. At the request the Russian authorities, he was then charged with plotting to kill Putin. In late 2014, the post-Maidan Ukrainian authorities dropped the attempted assassination charge.
In 2014, he entered the volunteer Dzhokar Dudayev Battalion comprised mostly of Chechens who had fled Kadyrov’s regime to the West. In 2015, Osmayev became a commander of the battalion after the death of brigadier general Isa Munayev amid the Debaltseve battle.
