Russia's new approach to dealing with "extremists"

[CrossLOPER]

I seriously doubt Czar Vladimir Putin I is that brazen. He may be a lot of things (saintly not being among them), but he's not that stupid. When I say he I mean the man personally. He seems to have more than a few dimwitted sycophant underlings who are will do such moronic things. Thinking that it's still 70's USSR and you can say "It never happend!" and people will believe you.

I suppose that a similar parallel can be drawn along side westerners who believe everything they read and make odd assumptions.

[lars573]

I only believe what falls into my judegements about something. Putin for example I get many impressions from photos and video clips. I see a man who is cool, calculating, in control, ruthless, and above all smart. There is nothing in his body langauge or expressions that give any indication that he'd sign off on some the more troubling foregin policy actions. IE the things that have happened outside Russia. He seems to have taken to heart Stalin's lesson of, you can get away with a helluva lot inside your own borders.


However he could just be good at putting on a public face to hide that he's really that macho and short sighted.

[BDC]

Well there is another way of putting it...

The Russian chap in London was killed by someone who had ready, recent access to fairly advanced reactors and labs. Specialist stuff. Whoever did it was also an idiot because there are only a few places in the world where that could happen.

Putin also apparently makes silly obvious mistakes (kind of anyway) at times.

Conclusions?

[cegorach]

However he could just be good at putting on a public face to hide that he's really that macho and short sighted.

It is both.

Clearly he is ruthless and clever with cold, calculating mind, but just let me remind the meeting in Lahti Finland couple of weeks ago - he lost controll snapping at not only Poland and the Balts (that is the 'usual' Putin), but even at Spain ( 'which is no less corrupted than Russia') and Italy ( 'Mafia is Italian word').
Recently we have another similar reaction - to the 'meat' veto of Poland.
First claims that it is only two-countries affair, next blaming the quality of Polish meat, next when it is again verified by the EU it is all Polish chaos which allows smuggling, now after it is proven it is not true we have the snapping i.e. athreating to ban all EU meat products because of Romania and Bulgaria. Finally on Sunday we had the anti-Polish demonstration which accuses Poland for poisoning the Russians - in the country when hardly anyone demonstates anymore (except the skinheads) it is something surely supported by someone in the authorities, even if at local level.

This particular assassination might be linked to the FSB, but it is hard to tell, clearly the employed poison was very advanced.
In generall there is pretty large number of idiotic and zealous FSB agents and it is far from full professionalist too e.g. the assasination of Zelimkhan Yandarbiev in Quatar when the Russian agents were captured after the bomb killed not only the target, but many civilians as well.

I have read and heard numerous opinions of so called Russian 'experts' employed by Kremlin as advisors - many of them live in a dreamworld of a super-powerfull empire.

Currently Russian authorities are dominated by former KGB agents ( 'Petersburg faction') who are ruthless and treat the entire Human Rights thing as some sort of fashion which they do neither understand, nor treat seriously.

It is similar to the Chinese policy, but with less skill and grace - massive blunders are made from time to time, when things go in different direction e.g. during the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine 2 years ago there was a sort of desperation revealed in Kremlin circles - quelling the demonstation by military was proposed openly and unofficially and Putin managed to congratulate the false winner 2, even 3 times when the rest of the world condemned the rigged elections.


Overall if it goes well Putin is calm, but when it is not he snaps...

Don't forget that it is less monolithic regime than shown, there are many factions inside and traits which are used in the politics - recently the xenophobic and ultra-nationalistic ones.
It is not chaotic Yeltsin era, but still it is neither democracy nor a full dictatorship.
I wouldn't be suprised if non-Petersburg faction ordered the poisoning, but it could be just an another blunder of the FSB.