Paul
Goble
Staunton, July 22 – One of the
reasons Vladimir Putin and his regime are able to get away with so many of
their crimes is that many in both Russia and the West tend to treat each one as
unique rather than see the linkages that exist among them, be it subversion of
other countries or even violence against opponents.
That makes a typology US-based
Russian journalist Kseniya Kirillova offers today on who in Russia or abroad is
most at risk of being killed by the agents of the Kremlin, a typology that she
admits is incomplete but one that nonetheless does provide the basis for a
better understanding of Putin’s operational code (svoboda.org/a/29356876.html).
The first category
of people at high risk of being attacked by Putin’s agents are “turncoats,”
people who have worked in the special services, the state bureaucracy, its
propaganda arms, and thus someone assumed to have information that could be
dangerous to the Kremlin, the Russian analyst says.
If this desertion has attracted a
great deal of attention, she continues, “the murderers will try in every
possible way to show that their revenge can reach ‘the traitor’ even years
later.”
A second category of targets are
journalists, bloggers or activists who have sharply criticized Russian foreign policy
and “Vladimir Putin personally.” The
level of risk within this group depends both on where an individual is located
and just how categorical these commentaries are.
Those who live in Russia are thus
most at risk; those in Ukraine somewhat less; and those in Western countries,
while still real targets, are less likely to be attacked except in extreme
cases.
These attacks, Kirillova says, may
be delivered both by Russian siloviki in office and also by those who have been
mobilized as adjuncts to them. In some
cases, the latter is a greater threat. “The risk of beating is somewhat higher than
that of murder, but that isn’t a reason for not taking the threat seriously.”
A third category, the analyst says, includes
those who work to expose “links of Russian or foreign politicians with the Russian
mafia, compile evidence of the international crimes of Russia, expose offshore
accounts” of Russian oligarchs and all such similar activities.
“Even if you do not exert
significant influence on public opinion, aren’t popular and aren’t too sharp in
your formulations,” Kirillova suggests, “you also are in the zone of heightened
risk which is directly proportional to the influence your work has on the objects
of your investigations.”
The existence of such threats, of course, “doesn’t mean
that you should stop your efforts. More than that, their continuation may be at
times the only morally correct choice. However such a choice must be conscious and
if you live in a civilized country it is possible to inform the authorities about
your situation.”
And
a fourth category of people at heightened risk, Kirillova argues, are those who
focus on corruption at lower levels of the Russian system. On the one hand, those who do may in some
cases help the Kremlin stage one of its unmaskings of corruption to win popular
support. But on the other, regional and local officials may be able to
orchestrate their own revenge.
Indeed,
such researchers may find themselves caught in struggles among Kremlin insiders
and that may increase their risk of attack even more. Only one conclusion is possible, she says: “to
be an opposition figure or simply an honest journalist in Russia is dangerous,
and at times this danger may reach out to people even beyond the borders of the
country.”
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