Dmitry Steshin is a right-wing journalist and a war correspondent from one of the oldest Russian newspapers Komsomolskaya Pravda. Steshin is responsible for reporting on military conflicts, natural disasters and other calamities. He has worked in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, South Ossetia and the North Caucasus. Since 2014 he has covered the armed conflict in Donbas.
Steshin is not just a Russian journalist and host of the “National Question“ radio show, who openly [calls](http://zavtra.ru/content/view/2011-07-1251/) himself a nationalist: “Liberals have usurped journalism, decided that light comes only from their ideas and they are right by birth. According to them, a person with nationalist views should be a dumb jewhater with a snaggletoothed handwriting. I don’t fit that standard, I’m tearing up the template“. But Steshin was the one who has befriended Russian Nazis from one of the most dangerous groups BORN (2008-2011), helped them and also wrote texts for the far-right magazine Russian Image, which was a front for underground terrorists.
**BORN connection**
Steshin was a witness in the BORN case and miraculously escaped prosecution, although there were direct indications in the case that he had helped the killers obtain firearms and then helped them to escape. As a result, the BORN has a dozen particularly serious crimes, and among its victims Eduard Chuvashov, judge of the Moscow City Court, lawyer Stanislav Markelov, journalist Anastasia Baburova, anti-fascists Alexander Ryukhin, Fedor Filatov, Ilya Dzhaparidze and Ivan Khutorskoy.
Dmitry Steshin was an old friend of BORN leader Nikita Tikhonov. According to Steshin himself during interrogations, he met the young neo-Nazi Tikhonov at the editorial board of the Russian Image. This magazine started by Nikita Tikhonov later grew into the political organization of the same name. Nikita Tikhonov said he had been hiding in Steshin’s flat for some time when he was put on the wanted list for the murder of anti-fascist Aleksandr Ryukhin in 2006 and went on the run. “With Dmitry Steshin we had a common interest in trekking. As an enthusiastic military archaeologist, he suggested that I travel to World War II battlefields for research and outdoor recreation. We became friends,“ Tikhonov said in his testimony.
It was Steshin, according to Tikhonov, who [introduced](https://zona.media/article/2015/01/19/11-druzey-born) him to arms dealers. “Using Steshin’s friendly feelings, I begged him to help me get something to shoot,“ the BORN leader recalled. Steshin then introduced him to a certain trader, from whom Tikhonov purchased a Suomi submachine gun, a rifle Mosin round and ammunition for them. Thus the neo-Nazi gang got an arsenal of weapons. Through these acquaintances of Steshin, Nikita Tikhonov also purchased the Browning revolver with which Markelov and Baburova were shot.
“In addition, I purchased a Yugoslavian-made Zastava sniper rifle, which I had left in a musical instrument (guitar) case at the home of Steshin’s wife Elizaveta’s parents in Sestroretsk, Leningrad Oblast. I did not tell them what was in the case, nor did I realize my intention to take the rifle back because I had been arrested,“ the neo-Nazi murderer said.
During the search of Steshin’s house some of Tikhonov’s things were found – several men’s jackets, trousers, a hat, books “1000 Questions about Weapons“ and “An Alarming Scenario of the Future“. Steshin also kept Tikhonov’s real passport as the neo-Nazi himself lived with forged documents.
Nikita Tikhonov was convicted of murder and weapons possession in April 2011 and sentenced to life imprisonment in May of the same year. Steshin was not the only journalist among the friends of BORN to get away with it.
