The keynote in the article is mockingly against Viktor Ilyukhin. They call the whole thing a “desperate communist comeback attempt”, they mark words (among other things Ilyukhin has said the village of “Nagornyj” instead of “Nagornoye”), and some other small bleed. They are almost on the verge of implying that Ilyukhin himself is behind the forgery of the documents that the anonymous informant has turned over to him and is now hiding behind convenient excuses. Furthermore it is said that “the forgery news” is not a coincident but has a direct connection with Rosarkhiv’s publication of the Katyn folder at their own web site recently (April 28).
In the article appeared also the former head of the archives Rudolf Pichoya (one of those who is actually depicted by the anonymous informant) and he strikes back at everything that Ilyukhin has claimed. Among other things Pichoya said that this is an attempt to confuse the brains of young people, and also that forgeries in the archives are totally impossible. He states, probably quite seriously, that no forgery attempts have been made in the archives for three centuries! He ends his debate appearance by calling Ilyukhin’s behavior as hooliganish and amateurish.
The article is concluded by a box with all the claimed strange affairs that Ilyukhin is supposed to have been involved in – if you want some kind of discredit box.
On the whole, this lunge on part of Pichoya, who is one of the main suspects and depicted in this case, is a little bit odd if you look at his reaction. It is strange that he does not react stronger than he actually does and take this matter to court as some kind of libel. If he has nothing to hide he should easily get a winning sentence against Ilyukhin for dissemination of slander. But no, Pichoya chooses to only mock Ilyukhin with a few sentences in a newspaper.
Source: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1387089
