by Eric Raynaud
Having made the decision to murder Ludmila in order to jump off before the disastrous train wreck, Vetrov would have started the groundwork. Since he had told anyone who would listen about his troubles with the two women, he did not have much more to do. His PGU colleagues would all testify in his favor. Vetrov wanted to prepare Vladik, though, since what his son thought of him mattered a lot. It was important to him not to lose his son’s love and respect. To prevent leaks, however, Vetrov did not tell Vladik the truth; if one does not know, one cannot betray inadvertently. Besides, he did not want to drag Vladik into the crime he was planning, so he only prepared him to cope with the upcoming drama. He told him about the documents Ochikina allegedly had stolen, about the blackmailing, and the February 23 ultimatum. To his relief, Vladik reacted mostly favorably to strong-arm tactics.
Vetrov realized that he needed to create a quarrel to take advantage of the “state of intense psychological agitation” clause. To that aim, Ludmila had to provoke him, to make him wild with rage. He might have known, since it was common knowledge, that the Military Prosecutor’s Office, which would be in charge of his case, was very sensitive to issues of hurt masculine pride. The military court, composed almost exclusively of men, also took those mitigating circumstances into account. One can thus assume that Vetrov prepared the following scenario.
He invites his mistress for some romantic moments in his car. To prove he wants everything to be for the better, he buys champagne. After drinking together, the lovers move on to some fondling. However, at the critical moment, Vetrov cannot rise to the occasion, a common but extremely humiliating situation. And Ludmila chooses this mortifying instant to make a biting remark, or even giggle at the wrong moment. Vetrov loses control and goes into a blind rage, explaining why this gentle and easygoing man behaved like a butcher; he was not himself anymore.
Viewed from this angle, it would have been very smart on Vetrov’s part to give Ludmila the first blow to the temple with the bottle. In a state of temporary dementia, one does not pick a weapon, but hits with whatever is at hand. Yet, a bottle of champagne is a formidable weapon. Strong, Vetrov probably hoped Ludmila would be killed outright. With that in mind, he had not thought about the fact that the car’s low ceiling would not give him enough room to hit hard. The pique could then be envisioned as a backup weapon from the start. Many people could confirm the pique had always been in the glove compartment. The first blow having failed, the pique became naturally the main weapon.
To prove that a murder was perpetrated by someone temporarily irresponsible, witnesses are needed. That is why Vetrov would have chosen a parking area next to a bus stop. After killing Ludmila with the bottle or the pique, all he would have had to do was get out of the car and scream. “Help! Please, somebody help me! What did I do? Oh, my God, it’s awful!” The passersby who would have rushed up to the car would have seen a half-mad man uttering incoherent sentences while trying to resuscitate the woman he had just killed. All the testimonies would be in his favor because the main witness, the victim, would not be there to invalidate his account of the events.
An individual who prepares a crime as serious as a murder must think of the most minute details and define a backup procedure for every possible thing that might go wrong. What if I cannot kill Ludmila first time around? What if she doesn’t pass out and starts screaming, struggling, and calling for help? What if somebody intervenes before she dies? Even very intelligent people cannot anticipate everything. Criminologists know it: the state of excitement that goes with the planning of a crime has an inhibiting effect on intellectual faculties.
Vetrov clearly did not have a critical mind; he did not know how to think through an operation (for a pro this one was definitely an operation), how to execute it as planned, and above all, he had no self-control. The first unexpected incident turned into a disaster.
After having hit Ludmila with the bottle, Vetrov understands he will not be able to take care of her that way. But he cannot backtrack. Ochikina alive will spoil his story. Soon the situation is beyond his control and takes an unexpected turn. Vetrov panics. In a way, he truly is not in his normal state. He grabs the pique and starts stabbing Ludmila; she must die for his plan to succeed. Senseless stabbing is all grist to his mill for that matter. A high number of blows can attest to the fact that the criminal was out of control.
It is at that very moment of total disarray, when Vetrov felt he had burned his bridges and had to go on killing Ludmila no matter what, that a man appeared. He was the witness he needed, but unfortunately intervening sooner than expected. Having suddenly appeared out of the darkness, the man was now an impediment he had to get rid of immediately. Vetrov did not believe the murder of the witness changed the situation much. What mattered the most was to finish off Ludmila.
This version of the events would also explain the visit Vetrov paid to the Rogatins immediately after the crime. The reader will remember that Galina had always been puzzled by Vetrov choosing her as his confidant. She still does not understand why, that evening, instead of going to see close friends, he came to see them, fairly remote acquaintances. Vetrov could not reasonably hope that the Rogatins would provide him with an alibi, thus becoming accomplices to a double murder.
Vetrov went to them because he planned to have them appear in court as unaware, and therefore more credible, witnesses for the defense. In the eyes of the judges, depositions by people close to him, like Svetlana, would not have the same weight. Similar to Vetrov’s PGU colleagues, Galina had been conditioned by his agonies, having seen the man torn apart between his wife and his mistress. She would testify to the fact that one hour after the crime, he still was not his normal self. He talked about a hammer that did not exist, a poked eye that was not. He believed he had run Ludmila over with his car, projecting her several meters away. Once it would have been determined that all those details were fantasy, the judges would conclude that Vetrov was delirious, or close to delirium. In case no passersby had been present at the crime scene, the Rogatins would have served as backup witnesses.
Vetrov’s ease in giving these fanciful details is not surprising. Premeditated or not, committing a murder alters the consciousness of the individual not used to killing, and not an insensitive brute by nature. Evidently, Vetrov could not keep his cool while stabbing a woman he had loved. He knocked a tooth out and pierced her upper lip; he could have seen an eye hanging out of its socket. He said he had run Ludmila over with the car to finish her off; it may be because that’s what he intended to do, but he could not tell for sure whether it happened or not. In his mental state, intentions became confused with real actions, not to mention that a man his age, with his personality type and his drinking tendencies, was rather psychologically inflexible.
Thus, Vetrov’s initial plan had not worked. Ochikina was not dead, but in the meantime he had killed a passerby. All the same, this plan showed through, here and there, in Vetrov’s behavior that evening of February 22. He would have planned, for instance, to tell his son they were not to meet again. After the decision he had made, he was expecting to spend the upcoming night at the police station.
After his arrest, Vetrov tried to salvage everything he could of his plan. Ludmila the survivor claims the contrary? He put pressure on the investigation by repeating his version a hundred times. She affirms she never threatened to go to the Party committee? He repeats that she was constantly blackmailing him on that pretence. She says he hit her although she had not said a word, just when she was about to have a sip of champagne? He manages to have the version about an alleged provocation in the car accredited. Vetrov quickly understood the KGB did not want scandal and was more likely to side with him than with a simple translator.
What Vetrov had not anticipated when planning his crime, and particularly when executing it, is that as he departed from the initial scenario, he came under another article of the penal code. Even if Soviet authorities easily bypassed or ignored the law altogether to convict opponents to the r
egime, when it came to sentencing ordinary criminals—and in a large part Vetrov belonged to this category—the bureaucratic machine of the judicial system worked rigidly. Consequently, his crime no longer qualified under the lax article 104 as “homicide in a state of intense psychological agitation,” but was now described by the very stern article 102 as “aggravated murder.” Its clauses listed a series of aggravating circumstances, three of which at least applied to Vetrov’s case; c) murder of a person in the exercise of his or her professional or social duties (since the victim belonged to the police); d) murder perpetrated with unusual cruelty, and h) murder of two people or more (a failed attempt at murder despite the criminal’s explicit intent to kill is often considered as equaling an accomplished murder). The sentence for such a crime is eight to fifteen years of imprisonment, or an “exceptional” sentence (capital punishment). During the investigation, therefore, Vetrov could not expect a deferred sentence or imprisonment for a symbolic term, but at a minimum an eight-year sentence. Even with this verdict, he could, nevertheless, be released after serving four years. Apparently, his judges had encouraged him to collaborate with the investigation to the point that he was almost sure his sentence would be minimal. Hence, his despondency and disappointment after the sentence was passed.
However, Vetrov’s letters show that his common sense convinced him in the end that his fate was not so terrible. Certainly, he paid a higher price than expected, but he had played his game well. The espionage story seemed forgotten, and he was far away from Moscow in a camp for the privileged where no one had an interest in him. The most important thing from that point on was to do everything possible to obtain a review of his case. This is shown in each of his letters, where he asks Svetlana to keep fighting for him. With time and a good lawyer, Vetrov could start bombarding the authorities with requests asking for the application of article 104. In many cases, this approach worked.
A bold hypothesis, as we saw, that cleared up all the contradictions summarized at the beginning of this chapter. However, like any hypothesis, this one raises other questions.
In fact, thirteen years after having written these lines, even Sergei Kostin no longer believes it. For one thing, if Vetrov had wanted to extricate himself from the situation, he could have done it in a less costly manner. A crime as serious as murder would inevitably trigger a very thorough investigation—actually, a complete study of his personality. Based on depositions by his close and distant relations, the judges would soon look more closely at the money coming from Leningrad, the cars “the French would buy him,” and so many other imprudent comments he could not help making. Vetrov should have hit a pedestrian with his car, being perfectly sober on that day. Then, as in Rechensky’s case, it would have been viewed as a terrible thing that could have happened to anyone. His family, his colleagues, and the entire service would have been on his side. He would have been sent down for five years, would have served two, and would have come out of jail with his head held high.
What do we make, then, of Ludmila Ochikina’s testimony, claiming Vetrov hit her with the bottle first, before she could say anything? When trying to resolve contradictory facts, the logical solution is to doubt the weakest link in the chain. However sincere and reliable Ludmila might have appeared to be, her account seems questionable, to say the least. For Vetrov to act the way he did, she must have said something that was beyond an offensive remark, something that imperiled his entire life. It had to be about his espionage activity. This theory agrees with the opinion shared by many of the actors in this affair, starting with Raymond Nart, whose opinion is based on the testimony of defector Vitaly Yurchenko. When debriefed by the CIA, the former head of the PGU Department 5K (internal counterintelligence related, inter alia, to France) was in complete agreement with this interpretation.
We continue to trust, nonetheless, most of Ochikina’s testimony, including the reasons why it was not in Vetrov’s interest to tell his mistress he was a mole. We have learned, however, that she had entrusted him with secret documents so he could write his famous report and demonstrate his merits to his department. Better still, when Vetrov was on duty on Sundays, without having the faintest idea of who was the actual recipient of this precious information, she left him the key to her safe so he could continue his work.
Here is yet another version that organizes the pieces of the puzzle into a coherent picture. Without really threatening him to go to the Party committee, Ludmila did give Vetrov a deadline: either he leaves his wife, or she leaves him. She claims that by then she was disgusted with him, but if so, she would not have gone with him to drink champagne in the car. For his part, Vetrov had no intention of being so harsh with her, certainly not in the way meant by his son. He simply wanted to settle the conflict amicably.
It is during the conversation in the car, probably when Vetrov poured the champagne in the only cup, after one of those imprudent comments Vladimir was so prone to let out, that Ludmila realized her lover was a spy. Vetrov read it immediately on her face, and all the violations, minor or more serious, his mistress committed for him passed through his mind in a flash. The thought that Ludmila risked being considered his accomplice, if she were to denounce him, did not even cross his mind. Only one thought prevailed: this woman could cause his downfall, so she had to be eliminated on the spot! Following his impulse, he made his first move, in an inconvenient position with an inadequate tool.
It is only after the fact, having become a murderer, that Vetrov understood how he could benefit from the situation.
CHAPTER 31
Unveiled
As mentioned earlier, the KGB suspected that the murder committed by Vetrov hid an espionage affair. Hence, the story about the painting offered to Vetrov by French people, discussed in the cell at Lefortovo; the question Belomestnykh asked Svetlana and Vladik about possible secret documents brought home by Vetrov; the awkward scene during Vetrov’s trial, when Rogatina mentioned in her deposition that Vladimir asked to borrow money to buy a painting; or the questioning about the fur coat by a woman in the bed next to Ludmila, in the KGB hospital. Those strange events are no longer mysterious today; Vladimir Kryuchkov, the PGU chief at the time, confirmed all these suspicions.
The KGB needed irrefutable evidence to confound an experienced operative like Vetrov. Time had stood still at Lefortovo, and this was the right opportunity to give Vetrov a good jolt by sending him to the Gulag, along with special instructions regarding his case. Probably not due to luck as much as effort, the KGB eventually came across a determining piece of evidence.
Dates are essential here. It happened sometime between March and September 1983. In March, Vetrov was sent to a camp in Irkutsk. His last letter, among those kept by Svetlana, was dated July 10. He probably wrote more after that date, but in the middle of the summer of 1983 Vetrov was miles away from thinking his espionage affair would be uncovered. Svetlana too hoped this “skeleton” was securely locked up in its closet. By September, Vetrov stopped writing.
Svetlana was used to receiving one or two letters a week. She had an entire stack of them in her linen wardrobe. Suddenly weeks went by with no news from her husband.
She telephoned Lefortovo to no avail and wrote to the director of the Irkutsk penitentiary, with no response. She imagined the worst. Disappearing in the Gulag was not so unusual.
When Svetlana understood that Vladimir had not disappeared, the feeling was not one of relief, because the phone call she got on November 17, 1983, after over two months of silence, came from Lefortovo.
“Could you come see us tomorrow?”
In a flash, Svetlana realized that the KGB had found out what had been going on. She wasted no time in destroying the letters that might compromise her husband during the new investigation. She also got rid of the note he had written to Prévost, which she had kept.
It was in vain! The first thing the investigation magistrates did was to show her an exact copy of the note. Same handwriting, same squared paper folded in four, sam
e length, same words that she knew by heart.
Svetlana tried to hedge, but lacked conviction. She was quick to understand that the note could not have been reconstituted without Vladimir’s collaboration. She thus decided not to hide what was obvious. It was just a call for help, she said, sent to a French acquaintance, and she added she did not know what the link was with her husband, other than an old friendship.
Then, the investigators gave her another note written by Vetrov, this time addressed to her. If Svetlana wanted to help him, he wrote, she must do as she was told by the investigators. She began by answering questions regarding the note to Prévost, its content, presentation, paper, and so forth. Two certainties emerged in her mind: first, the KGB knew her husband had collaborated with the DST; secondly, it was preparing a deception operation.
According to a now well-established ritual, they all went from Lefortovo to the apartment for a new search. The investigators found only the letters that were neither destroyed nor hidden. But their tone had changed; espionage within the KGB was no laughing matter.
Not one of the investigators present that day, however, thought about questioning Vladik, the only person who was familiar with Vetrov’s secret side.
One wonders what gave the traitor away. The PGU investigation file, naturally, does not say a word on the subject. This rule is common to police and security services all over the world: never reveal the source, whether it is an agent or a device like a microphone. Two key testimonies, though, Vladimir Kryuchkov’s and Igor Prelin’s,1 allow us today to establish with certainty the source of three exhibits, all equally fatal for Farewell.