well said, by mark galeotti, on the blog in moscow's shadows
My working hypothesis is that Nemtsov was killed by some murderous mavericks, not government agents, nor opposition fanatics. But the reason they felt obliged to go and gun down a frankly past-his-peak anti-government figure is highly likely to be precisely because of the increasingly toxic political climate that clearly is a product of Kremlin agency, in which people like Nemtsov are portrayed as Russophobic minions of the West, enemies of Russia’s people, culture, values and interests. So, to loop things round, Putin is guilty, I suspect--and all the caveats about the lack of hard evidence yet--the same way that tobacco companies are considered guilty of cancer deaths after they may have known about the risks, or any hate-speaker may be when some unhinged acolytes take their sentiments and decide to turn them into bloody action.
it's been my opinion all along that this government is responsible for a poisonous environment--one in which violent and discriminatory behaviour is insufficiently punished, often unacknowledged, and disturbingly unchecked. if it's politically motivated, i'm not surprised that it happened...
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