Out of the dark the bullets rip, repeating to the sound of the beat, and another Russian dissenter lies dead.
This time it was Boris Nemtsov, perhaps the most prominent of the protesters that this new tsar/commissar/thug-in-chief has inspired. But he's not the first and isn't likely to be the last.
Let's see. Going back to 2006, there was Anna Politkovskaya, who denounced the brutal war in Chechnya and paid the price, and in 2009 Natalya Estemirova, kidnapped and assassinated in the northern Caucasus. Not counting fearless journalists like Paul Klebinkov of Forbes, who was gunned down in 2004.
We lose count. You might as well try to tally up Al Capone's hit list in Chicago back in the literally roaring Twenties. Naturally enough Vlad the Terrible has expressed his condolences, the way Scarface Al made it a point to send flowers to the funerals he'd inspired. Just to shore up his alibi. And his latest cover story.
Vladimir Putin's henchmen also offer all kinds of improbable explanations for this latest addition to the ranks of the dear departed. Here's the nerviest of the latest batch: Boris Nemtsov was actually killed by other dissidents as a "sacrificial lamb" to raise suspicions about Russia's saintly ruler, innocent not-so-former KGB type that he is.
And so it goes. Remember when the motivations of Russian leaders were supposed to be hard to figure? Winston Churchill once described Soviet foreign policy as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But, he added, "perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."
It's a lot easier to read a plain and simple thug like Vladimir Putin when anybody who happens to get in his way winds up being bumped off. My, what a coincidence.
Editorial on 03/03/2015