"Woke" Amnesty International revokes the prisoner of conscience status of Russia's most "woke" political figure, Aleksei Navalny

Consider the irony of the unwoke Kremlin holding the feet of Western institutions to the woke fire. As a result, Amnesty International fell victim to the Kremlin's smear campaign — as did, perhaps, Navalny's chances for a Nobel Peace Prize. Putin could hardly ask for anything more.

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Putin Puts An End To Electoral Politics In Russia

The Sunday September 18 election for the Russian parliament has given Vladimir Putin another pro-Putin parliament (Duma) to routinely rubber-stamp his most ludicrous and repressive legislation. His United Russia party gained a majority (54 percent according to preliminary results). No opposition party crossed the five percent hurdle; instead, the reliable Communist (13 percent), Liberal Democrat (13 percent), and Just Russia Parties (6 percent) will join United Russia in the new Duma. Only sixteen candidates from the so-called small parties gained seats in regional parliaments. In a word: The Duma election was a total wipeout of legislative opposition in Putin’s Russia. This is no big deal in itself because the legislative branch has little power, but the election signaled the end of hope for change through elections in Russia. Palace coups or the streets are the only remaining options of the Russian people.



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How The Kremlin Lies With Headlines Like 'Ukrainian Fighter Jet Shot Down Malaysia Airlines' MH17'

The shock headline shows how Russian propaganda works. By luck or design, a news item appears in a legitimate media outlet, such as BBC, Reuters, or NBC. It gives a small opening for distorted interpretation, which is exploited in the form of a sensationalist headline in tabloids or Russian-sponsored media. The misinformation is repeated over and over until it gains public credence.



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Has Putin Met His Match In Russia's Truck Drivers?

Russia’s long-haul truck drivers have disrupted the country’s federal highways for more than two weeks to protest a new road tax (platon in Russian) collected (with a 20% commission) by the Putin-associated Rotenberg oligarchs. The protesters threatened a full blockade of Moscow today unless their demands for a radical restructuring of the government are met. Russia’s riot and traffic police have not been able to halt the convoys, and the Russian government has refused good-faith talks. Putin’s propaganda machine cannot brand three million ordinary citizens as traitors and CIA agents. It can only saturate the news with the “outrage” of Turkey shooting down its fighter jet. The Kremlin is threatened with its own version of a nationwide Maidan.

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Is The MH17 Joint Investigation Team Avoiding The Question Of Kremlin Guilt?

That the JIT has yet to interview Russian and separatist officials and officers having intimate and invaluable information about the shooting down of MH17 seem to suggest a reluctance, if not cowardice, to bring the real perpetrators of the disaster to justice. Putin and the Kremlin need not worry. Even if the JIT got its act together and started to move up the ladder, Putin could grant Strelkov and Bezler et al either parliamentary immunity or an unexplained disappearance.

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The Kremlin's New 'New' Version Of The Nemtsov Murder

Let’s see if the Kremlin can keep its story straight. The March 16 Interfax story insists that the Chechen 5 planned and carried out the murder on their own. No need to look for higher ups, just the lowly Chechen thugs in Lefortovo prison.  Although these men belong to Kadyrov’s Chechen gang, he had nothing to do with the murder. It looks like Kadyrov carried this round.

Tomorrow is another day and perhaps another round. Maybe it will bring with it yet a fourth version of the Nemtsov murder. If the Kremlin wants to achieve maximum confusion, it has done so.

One thing is certain. The Kremlin propaganda machine will charge ahead with its version of alternate reality irrespective of what investigators say. Putin’s trolls have purportedly been instructed to write that Ukraine is behind the Nemtsov murder, no matter what prosecutors or judges decide. This will remain the narrative of the Nemtsov murder just like the fable that a Ukrainian fighter shot down Malaysian Flight 17.

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Something Strange Going On in the Kremlin

The news coming out of Russia could not be stranger. The confessed assassin of Boris Nemtsov is visited by a human rights activist and claims he was tortured into a confession. Intelligence services first claim that Kremlin surveillance cameras were down for maintenance at the time of the assassination. Next, we hear that the cameras picked up images of the assassins near the crime scene. The puppet leader of Chechnya praises  the confessed (but confession withdrawn) killer as a pious Muslim, but his mother says he has no interest in religion. Rumors or a “shooting list” are laughed off by Putin’s official spokesman. Putin himself has not been seen in public since March 8 and apparently will skip an important meeting in Kazakhstan – for reasons of illness? The head of the security services is making announcements about the progress of the case instead of the usual Investigation Committee.

Instead of a neat roll out of confessions, quick sentencing, and disappearance into prison we have denials, different versions of events, and apparent turf wars. The name of the actual organizer of the killing is circulating on social media.

Has the Nemtsov murder caused Kremlin politics to spin out of control? What is going on?

The Nemtsov Murder Investigation Has Now Officially a Farce

The message of Boris Nemtsov’s assassination now cannot be mistaken. The in-your-face murder in the shadow of the Kremlin obviously required high-level assistance. The trail of the murderers leading to Chechnya was shrugged off with a medal of honor for its puppet leader. The ultimate insult was the reported confession of the alleged nonreligious hit man that he killed Nemtsov on his own initiative because he insulted Islam. Facts do not matter. Kremlin propaganda will still blame the Nazi-Ukrainians manipulated by the CIA no matter what the record will show. The rigorous investigation promised by Vladimir Putin has become a farce.

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Kremlin Investigators Claim That Nemstov Killed By All Putin’s Enemies In One Package

Putin has apparently decided that he can use the Nemtsov killing to implicate all his enemies at once. According to NEWSrsu, Kremlin investigators claim to have photographs of the killers – one male and one female (Adam Osmanov and Amina Okneva). According to the report, Osmaev is suspected in an assassination attempt on Putin and heads a Chechen battalion fighting on the side of Kiev. The implication: The Chechens working together with Ukraine’s secret service (and of course the CIA) are behind the murder of Nemtsov, which was done to discredit Putin.

Note that dark skinned Chechen rebels are convenient targets for prejudiced Russians, and the campaign of hate against the Ukrainian Nazi junta has been going 24/7 for almost a year.

Stalin used the murder of Leningrad boss Sergei Kirov to condemn his rivals from the right and left to death in three Moscow show trials. Putin appears to be intent on doing the same.  When Putin apologists claim “he has nothing to gain” from the murder of Nemtsov, just ignore them. His plan is becoming clear, and it is not good for Chechens, Ukrainians, or Ukraine’s so-called allies.

Videotape of Nemtsov Murder Shows High-Level Assistance

Western leaders do not want to recognize what Putin and his regime are capable of. Scholars John Dunlop and Karen Dawisha have chronicled the strong evidence that Putin was behind the 1999 apartment bombings that killed almost 400 Russians and brought him to power. England is convinced that the Kremlin ordered the “nuclear poisoning” of defector Alexander Litvinenko in London, and then sheltered his assassin with parliamentary immunity. Ordering the killing of one irritating opposition figure pales in comparison to this and other acts of murder.

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Putin Blames Enemies of the State For Nemtsov's Murder; Obama Demands Kremlin Investigate Itself

Vladimir Putin describes the Russian state as a power vertical, in which power is exercised at the very top. All authority descends from Putin himself and those below carry out his orders. According to this self description, nothing of importance can happen without the approval of the person atop the vertical. Under this logic, the contract killing of a major opposition figure falls under the direct responsibility of Putin. Calls by Merkel and Obama for justice are therefore really demands that the Kremlin investigate and bring itself to justice. Another case of Alice in Wonderland.

Boris Nemtsov, a leading opposition figure, age 55, was shot dead Friday night as he walked across a bridge connecting the Kremlin with the embankment district of central Moscow. The youthful and handsome Nemtsov was accompanied by his 23-year-old girlfriend, a Ukrainian model. According to initial BBC reports, he was shot four times by several men emerging from a white car and then speeding away. Nemtsov’s death was confirmed at the site by an aide, who reported that Nemtsov’s corpse lay in front of him on the street, surrounded by police. Contacts in Moscow reported that the murder scene was mobbed by mourners bringing flowers. Nemtsov’s female companion was taken away to be interrogated at police headquarters. (See video) Let’s see how long she’ll remain in custody.

Nemtsov served as Deputy Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin. He was also mayor of Nizhny Novgorod before joining the liberal opposition to Putin. During his tenure under Yeltsin, Nemtsov was considered a possible successor, but handicapped by the fact that he was Jewish.

Nemtsov had expressed fears of being murdered shortly before his death. His last tweet to the people of Moscow read:

"If you support stopping Russia's war with Ukraine, if you support stopping Putin's aggression, come to the Spring March in Maryino on 1 March."

Nemtsov’s murder has the typical features of a Russian contract killing, similar to the still unsolved murder of investigative journalist Anna Politovskaya. The killing of a prominent opposition figure in central Moscow cannot be passed off as a random act of violence. Even the Kremlin identified the murder as a contract killing.

A possible motive, other than being a thorn in the Kremlin’s side: Opposition figure (and Putin’s God daughter), Ksenia Sobchak, said that Nemtsov was preparing a report on Russian troops in Ukraine at the time of his death – a subject that is strict taboo under Putin.

The Putin propaganda machine immediately began its spin. A Kremlin spokesman stated shortly after the murder that Putin regards “this cruel murder (as having) every sign of being a contract killing, which has a solely provocative nature.”  In a condolence telegram to Nemtsov's 86-year-old mother, Putin vowed to do “everything to ensure that the perpetrators of this vile and cynical crime and those who stand behind them are properly punished." Putin’s notorious star-chamber Investigative Committee spoke of Nemtsov as a "sacrificial victim” of those who oppose the state and echoed Putin’s murder as a “provocation" against the state. Kremlin-friendly media darkly identified his companion as a Ukrainian model 30 years his junior, as if suggesting Kiev had something to do with the murder. The Investigative Committee, noted for its indictments of dissidents on trumped-up charges, also revealed it was looking for a Ukrainian or even Islamic extremist connection.

The Kremlin’s obvious strategy: Kick up the dust of confusion. Surely, they say, the “provocation” was instigated by Putin’s enemies (Take your pick: Ukraine, NATO, the CIA, "hohol" Nazis, ISIS, etc.). Putin, at least had the sense not to dismiss Nemtsov, like he did Politovskaya, as an insignificant person. Instead Putin damned Nemtsov with faint praise as someone “who occupied significant posts in a difficult time of transition.”

The unfortunate predictable reactions of Western leaders only contribute to the Putin narrative of sinister forces out to get the Kremlin. Angela Merkel called on President Putin “to ensure that the murder is cleared up and the perpetrators brought to justice.” Barack Obama echoed Merkel in “calling upon the Russian government to conduct a prompt, impartial, and transparent investigation into the circumstances of his murder and ensure that those responsible for this vicious killing are brought to justice.” Do not Merkel and Obama realize they are conceding Putin’s defense. By declaring Putin’s Kremlin responsible for finding the murderers, they are ruling out the possibility that the Kremlin itself ordered the hit.

Western leaders are reluctant to recognize what Putin and his regime are capable of. Scholars John Dunlop and Karen Dawisha have chronicled the strong evidence that Putin was behind the 1999 apartment bombings that killed almost 400 Russians that brought him to power. Ordering the killing of one irritating opposition figure pales in comparison to this and other acts of violence.

In my own view, there are two possible explanations of Nemtsov’s murder: One is that the murder was ordered by the Kremlin itself to signal a new phase of clamp down on opposition figures. To date, figures like Nemtsov, Gary Kasparov, and Mikhail Kasyanov have been roughed up and jailed but none murdered.

My second explanation would be a rogue element within the Kremlin, perhaps an overzealous oligarch, but an act of violence of this import would be an unlikely move for subordinates operating within Putin’s fabled vertical of power. I do not know how such things are arranged, but they are done most likely through a wink and a nod with no paper trail.

Note that a murder, basically on Kremlin grounds on a street traveled by Putin’s motorcade rigged with security cameras and security police, requires a degree of official cooperation or looking the other way. The professional murderers chose the Bolshoi Moskvrechky Bridge leading from the Kremlin, a landmark that allows better escape from the crime scene. The assassins in the white car, however, would have had to risk getting caught in Moscow’s notorious 24 hour traffic jams in their escape attempt. Without such safeguards, Russia’s notorious contract killers would not have done the deed. In any other metropolis, the murderers would have been apprehended within minutes or would have been identified through leaks, eye witnesses and security cameras within a short period of time.

There will be no justice for Nemtsov. An expert on Russian contract killings explains that they are rarely solved “because of the interwoven nature of criminality and Russian officialdom.” In the best case, some lower-level gangsters will confess and will quickly disappear within the Russian penal system. They and their families will likely be well paid.

If my suspicions are correct (and we will likely never know the truth), the murder of a major opposition figure on the eve of a major rally shows the supreme level of confidence Vladimir Putin has in his hold on power. He has annexed Crimea, has de facto taken much of eastern Ukraine, and has stared down the intimidated West. What's one murdered opposition figure, more or less?

We will see how the people of Moscow react to this vicious murder. Will they conclude that Putin is behind it? After all, his message to the Russian people is that he is responsible for all that is good. If so, would he also not answer for this cowardly act of murder by contract?