The Federal Security Service (FSB) has found no violations in a video posted online by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, featuring Russian opposition leaders in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle, one of the video's targets Mikhail Kasyanov said, citing the FSB response.
The FSB response “means that the head of the security services and all other law enforcement agencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin, approves of these methods of political struggle against me and the PARNAS democratic coalition,” Kasyanov wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday.
Kasyanov, a former prime minister turned opposition leader and head of PARNAS, along with a deputy chief of the opposition political party, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was featured in the video that the leader of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, posted on Feb. 1.
Showing opposition leaders in a sniper's crosshairs, the video included the message: “Those who didn't understand, will.”
Russian opposition leaders, European Union officials, and human rights activists described the video as a direct threat against public figures, and have urged Moscow to respond.
The FSB response, when it came, read: “The post contains no attributes of any illegal actions,” according to the message cited by Kasyanov.
A few days after the video was posted, unidentified Chechen-speaking assailants attacked and threatened Kasyanov at a Moscow restaurant, his allies reported.
