A speech of the president a little before the parliamentary elections also revealed a disdain for the opposition, or at least part of it, when affirming that opponents want to return to the times of the USSR or the chaos of the decade of 90s, and that they are in the service of foreign powers. Although western interference probably exists in internal Russian politics (disguised as aid to strengthen democracy, as well as there was in Georgia and in the Ukraine recently), to accuse the opposition of betraying their country and affirming that only their party can create a strong Russia is a not a very democratic attitude, which uses the fear of the population of returning to the serious problems faced so very recently.
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| Eight years of Putin in the Russian Presidency: A balance |
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But it is necessary to add that such emotional manipulation is not uncommon in countries also considered fully democratic. A subject that should not even be dealt with in this text, since it belongs to the criminal annals and not political, is the murders of the ex-agent of the FSB (the service of state-owned security, one of the agencies that replaced the extinct KGB) Aleksandr Litvinenko and of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Both were very critical of the current government, and this wide-ranging circumstance hits upon many people such as Putin (or some high member of the government) to blame for the deaths. The Litvinenko case (dead in November of 2006 in London, where he was exiled from 2000 and poisoned with a highly radioactive substance, polonium 210) is still inadequately explained: the British authorities also accuse ex-agent of the FSB Andrei Lugovoi and ask his extradition. The accused declares his innocence, and the Russian authorities contend that there is insufficient evidence against Lugovoi, and denied his extradition insisting that the constitution does not allow it. There are several hypotheses for the death of Litvinenko: he may have been murdered by the Russian government, in reprisal for his desertion (this seems to be the preferred one in western public opinion); he was wrapped up in organized crime; he wanted to supply radioactive material for a terrorist attack in the Caucasus, and by accident he was contaminated; or that he was poisoned by the businessman (Boris Berezovski was also exiled in London), to stain the reputation of Putin.
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