The Next Bond Villain?

Has anyone else noticed that the government of Russia is living in some kind of backwards James Bond movie?

The government keeps (allegedly) killing these people who are planning to report evidence against the country or its President Vladimir Putin. Not a bad idea, per se, except that instead of silencing their message, the murders only serve to turn what would have merely been a front page story for about a week in Easter Europe into a giant international scandal.

Of course, the most noteworthy (read: coolest) example of this was the death of ex-KGB agent and Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who drank Polonium-210 and, on his death bed, accused the Russian government, and Vladimir Putin by name, of trying to get rid of him.

Leonid Nevzlin, a former shareholder in one of Russia's major industries, the Yukos Oil Company, says Litivinenko had been making inquires into criminal charges brought by Russian prosecutors against top employees of the company and people connected therewith. (What a shock, an oil company is involved.) The former head of that company and Russia's wealthiest businessman, Mikhail Khordorkovsky, is currently imprisoned in Siberia - the same shackling prison whose wintry embrace was once shed by the Awkward Toad himself as Trevelyan in the 1997 Nintendo64 video game "OO7". Coincidence?

A more recent instance was the untimely demise of Ivan Safronov, who apparently decided it would be a good idea to jump out of a fifth-floor window in Moscow after calling his newspaper, the Kommersant, and saying he had "received information" about a Russian sale of Sukhoi-34 fighter jets and anti-aircraft missiles.

What country did they sell to, you ask?

Just Belarus. No big deal. We're not even sure where that is...

...except...

Belarus then sold those weapons to Syria and Iran. So. Fuck.

Of course, Putin has not been implicated personally in the reporter's death, but the hurried government conclusion, that Safronov committed suicide, and its categorical rejection by the Kommersant and most of the press at large, as well as other lingering questions about the FSB's (basically Russia's secret service) previous attempts to silence the man, have led many to wonder just who is running a country that, five years ago, was well on its way to being considered a cornerstone of freedom, transparency, and democracy.

Mr. Putin, if we may, we think someone should probably watch Rocky IV again...


That someone is you. You're the someone, Mr. Putin. In case that was unclear.