MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin decorated a slain journalist with the order of courage Monday for her brave conduct in the line of duty, Interfax reported.

Larisa Yudina , editor of the Soviet Kalmykia Today newspaper, was found dead June 8, 1998, in the Kalmyk regional capital of Elista with multiple knife wounds and a fractured skull. The culprits have never been found.

Members of the liberal Yabloko party, to which Yudina belonged, and other opposition members believe the killing was politically motivated.

Yudina had often criticized Kalmyk's authoritarian President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.