BBC News | EUROPE | Borovik: Investigative journalist

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Thursday, 9 March, 2000, 16:46 GMT

Borovik: Investigative journalist

By Russian affairs analyst, Stephen Dalziel

Artyom Borovik, who died on Thursday in a plane crash in Moscow, was the Soviet Union's first real investigative journalist.

He cut his teeth in the war in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Taking full advantage of the policy of "glasnost" - openness - declared by the then Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mr Borovik pointed out to the Soviet people that the army had not gone into Afghanistan solely on a peace-keeping mission. Borovik

It was fighting a war, and Soviet soldiers were being killed.

After Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Mr Borovik, who was working for the popular journal Ogonyok, took part in a unique exchange with an American journalist from Life magazine, and spent a month training with a unit of the US Army.

This, as well as his experiences in Afghanistan, persuaded Mr Borovik that the Soviet Army was desperately in need of reform.

Top Secret

In 1990, he founded the country's first newspaper dedicated to investigative journalism, Top Secret.

Corruption in the army, the shady work of the KGB, the misdemeanours of politicians: all were seen as fair game for Top Secret.

Following the success of this venture, Mr Borovik expanded his output to start the Top Secret television channel.

He was the author, too, of a number of books, most notably a recent - and unflattering - study of a man seen as one of Russia's most influential tycoons, Boris Berezovsky.

This was typical of the investigative nature of Mr Borovik's work, which made him a number of enemies.

For this reason, a government commission has already been set up to look into the plane crash under the chairmanship of the Minister for Emergency Situations, Sergei Shoigu.

Russia has already seen too many top level murders in recent years for foul play to be ruled out in this case.

Related to this story:
Nine die in Russian plane crash (09 Mar 00 | Europe)

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