Any Russian critical of President Putin is now a potential enemy of the state
Natalia Arno was fully inside the hotel room before she noticed the smell. It was sickly sweet, like a cheap perfume at the drug store, only more nauseating.
It was May 2 2023, and Arno had arrived in Prague the night before, on part of a European tour. The Russian activist and non-profit director had been on the road, meeting with donors and organisers looking for ways to bolster democracy back in Russia. On the previous leg of her trip, Arno had felt a bit tired, like she was coming down with something. But now, after a day of meetings and a business dinner, she was full of her usual energy. She was just going back to her room to change into jeans, before meeting up for drinks with colleagues.
...
Three hours later, Arno woke up with an excruciating pain inside her mouth — a burning sensation so unbearable she could barely open it. Arno is no stranger to pain. When she was 13, she dropped a pot of boiling water, burning herself so badly she had to spend a month in a hospital where there were no painkillers. She gave birth to her son without pain relief and treats most illnesses with a cup of hot tea and honey. But this agony surpassed any she had ever experienced.
...
There are many ways to incapacitate an enemy. But, historically, few have proved so attractive to the Soviet and Russian security services as poisoning. Ever since Vladimir Lenin set up his poison factory, known as the “Special Room”, over a century ago, poisonings have become one of the Kremlin’s preferred ways to eliminate, cripple or terrorise enemies and critics. Over the decades, it has built up unrivalled expertise in the field.
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The Cold War never actually did end, did it? The communist government fell, but the threat didn't.
At any rate, there's a robust defense against this sort of strategy--strength in numbers. Go ahead, try to poison all of us.
Communism was never the problem, Russians were.
This seems racist and I can't believe it's so high upvoted. Sure, the unstable and corrupt leadership continued after the fall of the Soviet Union. But seriously?
They've been an incredibly brutal imperialist country for centuries now; the Soviet Union was just more of the same. I'm not saying it's a genetic feature of all Russians, but something is clearly fucked up about the way they run their country when they can't go few decades without committing literal genocide
EDIT: Some Russian genocides and ethnic cleansings over the years
Just to drive the point home, here's a list of just the easiest to find genocides and ethnic cleansings perpetrated by Russians that I found with a minimum of searching based on what I remember from history. Note that there's some overlap between these, so you can't just sum the "victims" column to get a total victim count.
There is a book "Putin Country" on how rural Russia is every bit as fundamentalist in wanting the murdering of considered-reason, diverse-thinking, objectivity, etc, as the republican rural US is: it's the same pattern, or antipattern.
Shit-education, combined with anti-intellect culture, combined with gang-style culture/values ( our gang wins, NEVER whistleblow, or we'll ALL murder you for betraying the herd/gang!! ), and you produce such result.
The Mongol Yoke seems to have entrenched corruption, sociopathy, nihilism, etc, into Russian culture.
the Sovyet Soyuz ( union, I think ) Socialist .. I don't know what the P ( which is an R, in our alphabet ) stood-for, in CCCP .. was continuing the abuse that had already been going on for ages..
and when you prevent uprightness from living, in a population, there are consequences, whether in the Eastern hemisphere or the Western, the Northern or the Soutern, it's only appearances that differ, not the fundamental self/others/Nature/LivingSpirit set of relationships..
Gangs work to murder-out all which would compete against them, whether US, Russian, Chinese, Arab, Israeli, it doesn't matter.
Abuse's supremacy produces the perpetuation of abuse's supremacy.
This is why the only method that could have worked, in Palestine, was having an absolutely neutral government ( which Hamas would never have tolerated, nor would Israel ), and to force absolute neutrality & properness, for a hard minimum of 2+ generations, until the grudge-enforcing generations were all retired-out-from all leverage & authority.
No other method could have worked.
The idiocy of people pretending that "no bullets fly, therefore this is what Peace means!", and indulging in incredulity when grudge-violence erupts..
How can any self-respecting person stomach that dishonesty, I don't know.
Humankind doesn't have the spine to earn real integrity, and real-integrity is what it'd take to clean-up our own countries, let-alone derelict-abandoned countries, ruled by organized-crime..
Notice that the White-Blue-White Russians are city people, not rural: it's cultural, same as in the US with democrats being city slickers.
it takes multiple generations of concerted, strategically-coherent force, to break the ignorance/prejudice/ideology-additions that rule our world's people, including us.
IF any remnant of humankind survives this century, THEN maybe they'll succeed in earning such integrity, & be able to continue living..
that's a big if, though, now, with the global TANTRUM/POGROM that humankind's setting-up to "deal with" God not catering-to our toddler-unconscious..
Sorry for the rambling, but it's all inter-related, and you can't fix anything in isolation, no matter which country it's in..
_ /\ _
Putin, smiling from his throne of russian and non-russian skulls:"Might as well"
The Soviet Union didn't really fall so much as they reshuffled positions and changed titles.
This is not even my final form yet!