Putin's Silenced Critics
The blood-soaked dictator's victims have grown exponentially in the last 9 years as he seeks Ukraine's elimination. Yet many world leaders still want to do business with him.
This is Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner’s summary of the Jan. 29, 2016, edition, which can be read here in PDF format:
As Edward Lucas wrote recently in Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Putin's time in office began with a bloodbath -- and that's how it might end. The 16+ years of Putin's rule have been marked by murder, war, and terrorism. Yet many in the West still think they can do business with him. We took the opportunity of the British inquiry into Alexander Litvinenko's murder to review the bloody trail left by the Kremlin ruler.
Also on tap: Reform Watch tracks developments in rule of law, public administration, security & defense, economy & finance and energy and agriculture.
We look at the strange case of the security service's 13-building apartment complex going up in Kyiv and the ways in which it might be breaking the law.
Lifestyle is particularly lively this week and includes an interview with Evgeny Afineevsky, the director of "Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom," nominated for an Oscar in the Best Documentary category on Feb. 28.
2 old grumps …
When will you add the last decade of murders to your list? I have many friends who could help write the list.
Wayne
You forgot Dr. James E. Mace, the American Holodomor historian medically murdered in 2004, a few months after we attended the United Nations Holodomor Genocide Exhibition Opening Event. Jim was badly beaten, and in the hospital he was given an anti-coagulant drug and bled to death all the faster from a ruptured spleen. The ambulance his family had called was officially called-off. Guess what entity had the power to do that. Putin is quoted as threatening to use medical murder, and has done so along with the default arranged car accidents, window walks, balcony plunges, poisonings, etc.
A couple of days before his death, Jim wrote to me, “Be careful,” because, as he phrased it, “weird things are happening here.” The next I heard, he was dead. Note that the drugs giving for coagulation and anticoagulation are very distinctly and differently marked to prevent any accidental tragedy. This was murder, plain and simple.
At what point does murder become defined as assassination? Murder is killing; assassination has a political or ideological basis, so I gather from the definition difference and in light of Jim’s vast scope of knowledge about the Holodomor Genocide that the Soviets always and the Ruzzianz still deny occurred but which killed 10.5 million people, he was assassinated. No pretentiousness about it, as the dictionary makes the wordchoice clear.
Rest in honoured peace, Jim. The good work you began so well continues.