The attack
Galina Starovoitova, a State Duma deputy known for democratic and human-rights advocacy, was shot in the entrance of her apartment building in Saint Petersburg on November 20, 1998. Her aide, Ruslan Linkov, was also shot and survived.
The killing triggered a long-running investigation that eventually established criminal responsibility for several people who organized or directly participated in the attack. The legal record developed in stages rather than in a single trial.
The first major convictions
In June 2005, the Saint Petersburg City Court convicted Yuri Kolchin of organizing the assassination and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Vitaly Akishin, identified in the case as the direct gunman, received 23 years and six months. Interfax later reported that Russia's Supreme Court left those convictions unchanged.
Other defendants received different outcomes, including acquittals or convictions for narrower conduct. This archive does not collapse those different results into a single claim of guilt.
The Glushchenko prosecution
The investigation later focused on former State Duma deputy Mikhail Glushchenko. After entering a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, he admitted his own role in relaying and organizing the killing. On August 28, 2015, a Saint Petersburg court sentenced him to 17 years in a strict-regime penal colony and imposed a fine.
Glushchenko gave evidence alleging that businessman Vladimir Barsukov had ordered the killing. Barsukov was later charged in connection with the Starovoitova case, but an accusation is not the same as a final conviction for commissioning the assassination. Reliable reporting reviewed for this file continues to describe the ultimate ordering party as unresolved.
Why the case remains partial
The operational side of the assassination has been substantially adjudicated: organizers and a shooter were convicted, and a later organizer admitted his participation. But Interfax reporting continued to state that the person who ultimately commissioned the murder had not been established. For that reason, this archive classifies the case as partially solved rather than completely solved.
November 20, 1998: Starovoitova is shot dead in Saint Petersburg; Ruslan Linkov survives.
June 2005: Yuri Kolchin receives 20 years and Vitaly Akishin 23 years and six months.
2006: Russia's Supreme Court leaves the principal 2005 convictions in force.
August 28, 2015: Mikhail Glushchenko receives 17 years for his role in organizing the assassination.
2019 onward: additional accusations concern the alleged commissioning of the killing, but the ultimate ordering party remains unresolved in the reviewed final criminal record.
Current status
Multiple participants were convicted and those convictions form a substantial legal record. The case remains partial because the ultimate commissioning responsibility has not been conclusively established in a final criminal judgment reviewed for this page.
Sources
Archive context
This case is included in the Russia archive. Related files include The Murder of Anna Politkovskaya and The Murder of Boris Nemtsov, both of which also require careful separation between convicted participants and unresolved commissioning responsibility.