[kristinn]

Follow on from Ben Judah at UK Telegraph:

SNIP

This means the murder of Boris Nemtsov was either ordered or allowed to happen: which come to exactly the same thing. That he could be killed like this has shaken the oligarchs and the officers of the Russian elite to their core. Boris Nemtsov was once Russia’s deputy prime minister and a protégé of Boris Yeltsin. He was almost picked as a successor instead of Putin. His murder means that the Putin’s solemn – and public – promise not to touch Yeltsin and his allies has been torn up.

This means the old Moscow rulebook has been torn up, too. Ever since fall of Khrushchev power in Moscow has changed hands without executions. Once ousted, old ruling cliques were allowed to live their lives out in irrelevance. Ripping this up works perfectly for Putin. Those contemplating, even in the abstract, a coup know they could be executed for it – and those loyal to Putin now believe that they must fight to keep him in power as they could be executed in revenge should he fall. Vladimir Putin now has the elite exactly where he wants them: terrified.

[GeronL]

The regime’s opponents have been derided as traitors in the state media, harassed by Kremlin-sponsored youth groups, hit with absurd criminal charges, put under house arrest, and sent to prison camps. They’ve been marginalized, vilified, and ridiculed to the point of irrelevance.

Sounds like a paradise, right?

/sarcasm

[Impy]

Garry Kasparov better watch his back.

[tcrlaf]

Kasparov seems careful not to blame Putin directly, but clearly he thinks this was fueled by him.

Most in the US don’t realize just how much passions in Russia have been inflamed by the Civil War in Ukraine. To them, this is clear-cut, U.S.-sponsored ethnic cleansing of ethnic Russians.

This is supported in the media, and in the idiocy coming from Kiev, like today’s moronic statement by Kiev Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, that, “everyone who speaks russian in Ukraine is a potential traitor.”

[elhombrelibre]

Well, if Russians ever get tired of Putin, he has his fans on FReeRepublic. They could buy a small island together and create a cult of catamites willing to serve Putin in a new Putinstan.

[lentulusgracchus]

[Article]
And like in Ukraine, the whole thing is designed to give Putin plausible deniability.

I just don't see the logic of that statement. To me, it adds a huge fluorescent-green arrow that glows in the dark as it points to Vladimir Putin, KGB overlord of the FSR.

Putin is playing epistemic games with everyone he faces..... To prevent them from drawing strong conclusions and taking actions of their own.

So does Obama. What does that tell you, about who is the Sith Master and who the student?

[Dick Vomer]

Sounds like our democrat party

[Defiant]

I wonder if there was an article like this when Breitbart died?

[McGruff]

When reporters asked former world chess champion and Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov who was behind the assassination of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, he dismissed the question as irrelevant. Whoever did the dirty work, he implied, would have done so only with President Vladimir Putin's blessing.

The guy should stick to chess. Not criminal investigations.

[lavaroise]

If Putin is an encrypted black box, Obama is an ambiguous sack of crap in a good restaurant with the Queen of England.