Anna Politkovskaya, A Russian Diary
Anna Politkovskaya, Russian journalist and activist was murdered in Moscow, October, 2006.
Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian FSB agent, reported to President Putin that he was tasked with killing Berezovskoy, Yeltsin’s campaign manager. Putin had him arrested, he served one year in prison then fled to London. Litvinenko was three days into being administered poison (lethal Polonium) in London, by two former KGB agents, when he heard of Anna Politovskaya’s murder by an unknown gunman. Litvinenko, he thought safely living in London, openly declared President Putin ordered her murder.
In all ages, great empires have been deluded by their invulnerability, a sense of their grandeur and infallibility. Putin is describing the inevitable decline of the USA.
In order to understand Politkovskaya’s activism against President Putin’s corrupt regime some details of Russia’s recent history are relevant.
Putin, like Theresa May UK Prime Minister, does not take part in public debates, instead, his preferred genre is the monologue, with leading questions prepared in advance. Putin trusts nobody a fundamental characteristic of Putin’s rule. In August 1999, Putin watched Chechen Basaev get out of control in Chechnya. Yeltsin made Putin his acting Prime Minister, then Prime Minister, then President of Russia who then commenced the Second Chechen War. The pretext for this war was the bombing of an apartment block in Moscow, the FSB bomber was arrested as he tried to leave the scene. This man was never brought to trial. The Nord-Ost theatre siege where Chechens were killed with poison gas killed three hundred hostages indiscriminately. There was no inquiry or trial al the Chechens were killed at the theatre. The Chechen war led to the Nord-Ost and Beslan hostage taking. The stealing of Yukos from Khodorkhovsky was corruption at the highest level confirming the Putin administration is a kleptocracy. Putin’s kleptocracy is destined to collapse after decades of creeping stagnation.
Gary Kasparov through his United Citizens Front is capable of uniting all responsible citizens to avert this stagnating crisis.
There is no political opposition in Russia; there are no debates in the Duma; no free press; no free and impartial judiciary; Litvinenko, Politovskaya, Nemtsov et alius are dead because they opposed Putin. Is this the system the idiot in the White House wants to emulate?
Sources
Anna Politkovskaya, A Russian Diary, Vintage, 2007 & Putin’s Russia, Vintage 2006
Hunting the KGB Killers, Channel 4, April 2017
