Ukrainian Amazon killed in the assassination near Kiev

On October 30, late in the evening, not far from Kiev, unknown perpetrators killed Amina Okuyeva – a famous Ukrainian soldier of Chechen origin, who took part in Euromaidan, and then fought in the eastern Ukraine.

Okuyeva’s car was fired on by automatic weapons at a level crossing, 15 kilometres from Kiev. She was hit by six bullets. Her husband, Adam Osmayev, who was sitting in the front seat of the car, was wounded.

The assassination was organized by professionals. At first, they were described as a diversion unit. However, there were no confirmed information about the payers and the contractors of the action so far. The police have several versions of the investigation.

It was not the first trial of assassination on the famous Chechen marriage. On June 1 in Kiev, a gunman, claiming to be a French journalist, fired at Osmayev. His wife saved him and shot the attacker.

Okuyeva herself claimed in the interviews that they were hunted by Russian special services, and the contractors could be associated with the Chechen President, Ramzan Kadyrov.

The Chechen married couple was well-known in Ukraine. The media wrote especially about Amina Okuyeva. She was born in Odessa, but there are many rumours around her origins. In her childhood, her name was Natasha and her surname was Nikifirov – like her stepfather.
At the age of 17, she became a Muslim and began to wear a hijab. She married a Chechen military who died in 2003. The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation called him a member of the “bandit formation in the Chechen republic”.

Her second husband was Islam Tuchashev, He had a passport under the name of Okuyev. Amina changed her surname into Okuyev as well. She was living in Moscow and Grozny for some time and returned with her husband to Odessa in 2003. However, he was soon deported from Ukraine. He was accused of murdering a collaborator of the special services of Ingushetia and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

In 2009 in Kiev, Amina met Adam Osmayev and they lived together in Odessa for some time. However, his life is full of mysteries. Some media wrote that he was hiding in Odessa. In February 2012, he was detained by the Security Service of Ukraine and accused of preparing an attack on the authorities of the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin himself. But many experts doubted that and pointed to the connection between the accusation and the presidential campaign in Russia at that time. Amina Okuyeva, with the help of the lawyers, was able to stop Osmayev’s extradition to Russia.

When the Euromaidan started in Kiev in autumn 2013, Amina Okuyev, an educated surgeon, joined the Afghan sotnia of the Self-Défense of Maidan.

When the President Viktor Yanukovych escaped from Ukraine in February 2014, Okuyeva asked the Ukrainian authorities for the rehabilitation of her husband. In November 2014, the court in Odessa changed the sentence. It regarded Adam Osmayev guilty only of the illegal possession of explosive device and fake ID. Amina’s husband was eventually set free.

Meanwhile, Amina Okuyeva has already become one of the symbols of the Ukrainian fight in the east of the country. In July 2014, she joined the “Kiev-2” battalion and – according to her official biography – she fought in Donbas.

Her photographs often appeared in social networks. The media, including the foreign ones, were keen to show Okuyeva, who looked like a model – usually wearing hijab, an elegant army uniform or a long dress, and carrying weapons. She became one of the war icons, she was even called the “Ukrainian Amazon”.

After being released from prison, Osmayev enlisted in the” Dudayev” battalion fighting for Ukrainians. The battalion was organized by Chechen emigrants. He took part in the battles between 2014 and 2015, including the Debaltseve battle. In February 2015 – after the death of the battalion’s commander – he became the new commanding officer.

Recently, Osmayev and Okuyeva were mainly involved in the information war against Russia. She was Ihor Mosiychuk’s assistant, a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. According to some, the heroic image of the married couple was not utterly true. There are also doubts concerning her undisclosed assassinators and the Russian or Chechen special services’ involvement in that whole case.

In Ukraine, which fights at war for the fourth year in a row, the death of Amina shocked many people. After all, their heroine died.

Last year several terrorist attacks took place in Kiev. Selected people were the targets. On 8 September, a car was blown out in the centre of Kiev. Georgian citizen of Chechen origin, Timur Macahauri, was killed. He fought along with Osmayev in the same Chechen battalion.

The photographs show the bomb attack on September 8 in Kiev, in which the Georgia citizen of Chechen origin, Timur Machauri, was killed.