https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Ankara_prisoner_exchange
(also various US and UK citizens)
You need to understand that those “above” are dumb bureaucrats playing dumb bureaucratic games. This is how societal selection works in current historical period.
As for this case, Kadyrov (or his inner circle) is known to be emo about any critic, and has been successfully killing the Chechen refugees in Europe for decades now. Ukrainians also seem to operate freely, which is a bit ironic when you remember that Ukrainian agents were taught in the same secret military schools Russian agents graduated from, and that Ukrainian oligarchs have mansions on Côte d'Azur and similar places right next to mansions of Russian oligarchs. I sometimes worry about their travel logistics in such complex times. Poor creatures!
Yes, those create awful incentives and should absolutely not be legal.
> And if you do not save your own spies given a chance
One should not exchange spies for the cost of increasing political assasinations. Same reason as why you shouldn't pay kidnappers.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyrzd5g6k2o
>Video posted recently on social media showed Skrepetsky at a Russia Day protest outside the Russian embassy in Berlin on 12 June.
>He had been carrying a painting caricaturing Putin and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, as well as a Russian flag tied to his trousers that had been dragging along the road.
The Russian trolls are out in force, suggesting that he might have been killed by some confused psychos or something.
The article seems to be hinting this was a Russian or Belarusian assassination, which might be true. Sounds like someone assassinated him. But if so there is a big hole to fill in the story on what a plausible reason is. Based on this my first guess would be that something in his private life spilled over, but I expect there is a section of the story that isn't in the news right now.
EDIT Also related only by the vaguest vibe, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeiweiCam is more what I'd expect for artistic dissidents and is truly remarkable modern art.
That is the whole point. You can't maintain a dictatorship if you let people get to the point of being a clear threat, because sooner or later, someone could slip through the cracks and take you out. You can't keep the leash this loose.
As a dictator, you must go after people for seemingly small things, such as merely expressing the wrong thoughts, making the wrong kind of art, and so on. That sends a message to everyone that even small transgressions carry an unacceptable risk, so if your neighbor keeps criticizing the government, maybe you should report them, not join their discussion club that may become a real political movement.
For a while after the revolution that established your regime, people are on their best behavior because you just finished summarily executing hundreds of thousands or millions for having the wrong views. But both in Russia and in China, it's been a long time since that happened, few people remember Stalin or Mao, and so you need to keep sending behavioral nudges in a different way.
Also, modern-day Russia embraces a "budget" / "disposable asset" approach to terrorism. If you're important enough, they will send an elite squad to poison you. If not, they literally recruit people on the internet to beat you up, set a warehouse on fire, etc. So you also have to look at developments like as something that's cheap and largely risk-free.
If this guy was having that sort of impact on the Russian discourse then the article is definitely missing a lot of important information.
The people in the tech industry who have cheered on mafia style government in the USA should move to Russia and get a taste of what it looks like in its advanced stages.
RIP
Edit: didn’t see him holding satirized pictures of that president, almost withdraw the question
The usual tactic is to brand people as troublemakers then try and limit the news coverage they get. Or hit them with a smear campaign which is cheaper, easier and less likely to attract negative publicity like an assassination would. As a bonus the smear approach also directly discredits the message they were spreading.
Have you seen this kind of reporting?-
> Russia is ramping up its attempts to kill opponents in Europe, intelligence officials say https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/russia-ramping-attempts...
Could they please get back to smearing (or even… ADDING value to the world! once they have a better leader for their good people)
False. The article makes it very clear what would make sense as a motive here.
Are there mercenaries all over the world willing to kill for money from the various superpowers?
Or is it a more direct operation planned and executed in one sequence by intelligence members?
These executions follow a very similar pattern. Two other I can think of are Selimchan Changoschwili in 2019 and Maxim Kusminow in 2024; with regards to the latter, perma-drunk Dmitry Medvedev babbled about "a dog's death to a dog" nonsense. Tie to this the genocide Putin commits presently against Ukrainians.
I think there is no real "reasoning" possible with the current regime. It's not just Putin, naturally, but a whole parasitic society sitting and feeding on top of this mafia structure. Naturally a direct war is not really possible due to the mafia having access to nukes, but there has to be a complete shift - the diplomatic axis has to exist (no alternative to that from an objective view) while the military side also has to be strengthened, not only in Ukraine but all countries being close to Russia and the Belarus satellite state. Putin will never change as long as he is still alive. And even when he is gone, I have a slight feeling that it is more likely that one of the mafia group will take over anyway.
So maybe it's not so obvious who killed him after all.
We executed William Joyce and assassinated many like him, nobody seriously questions the morality of that. They deserved their fates a thousand times over.
Not commenting on whether or not this particular individual deserved their fate, but on a more general level.
But Kadyrov clan is a different story. It‘s getting weaker, its leader has according to some sources serious health problems. Moscow isn‘t keen on seeing another Kadyrov in power in Chechnya. So Chechens are more eager to suppress any attacks on the clan that question its strength and authority.
So, let's assume he was a bad artist. How does this offset or negate being assassinated by a state?
I also fail to see how "provocative insults" are relevant here either. Am I talking to a russian AI bot here?
Second, my first word was "Sad", so there"s no negation for being assassinated by anyone.
Third, I don't know how old you are, but I presumed most adults know that critics of Putin are known to mysteriously die.
I mean: "JFK shoot in the head", your comment "didn't like his shoes anyway".
The man lived in a country where vocal, public opponents of Putin get murdered. He also offended his country's (and Putin's) religion. He could have painted at least realistic-looking political figures, but chose to represent them in a vile-looking manner. That's bound to piss people off.
There's entire articles online saying exactly the same thing I'm saying.
lol... are you from the Middle Ages?
You think being an atheist is a status boost, when most scientists, doctors, etc are openly religious?
- when kids from Gaza got sniped by an Israeli: "Small number of kids found dead somewhere in the Middle East"
- when single adult killed by Russians: "Putin critic shot dead in Poland"
All lives matter, for some reason, BBC is afraid of other real criminals, who might be even more brutal than the Putin (haven't heard Russians deliberately sniping kids on a daily basis)
Sniping - no, but mostly because they can't aim and resort to shelling/bombing the genera area, even if it's far from the frontlines.
Plenty of children died like that already, but you don't hear about this because they don't have a PR machine behind them.
That would be insane! Kidnapping them en masse in Ukraine, and raise them as russian on the other hand...
Also, if those kids are raised as soldiers and then "used" to kill more Ukranians or as cannon fodder, wouldn't that be even worse than killing them in the first place in some ethical view?
Read my other comments, feels like you are trying to steer the conversation to defend Israeli crimes.
Also the whole point of my comment was about how biased BBC is, on one side non-proven crime associated with Russians, on the other hand proven crimes not associated with Israelis.
And you are trying to tell me that ohh look Russia is bad as well. Was it a question actually? I was clear about pointing to what BBC is doing with its words, not downplaying the criminals actions
Also, read carefully, BBC mentioned Russians twice, (Russian artist, and Putin critic) even though that person also criticized Ukrainian politicians. Why single out Russia, especially when it's not proven yet who killed him.
In case of Gaza though, it is 100% clear who shots kids deliberately
In fact, I have the impression that you are the one trying to downplay Putin, for example saying "Ukraine loses" instead of "Russian kidnapp" or "Russian warcrimes".
Israel was an apartheid state before Netenyahu became its PM. The BBC wasn't quite as euphemistic about their settler colonial project until the 90s though.
No, I am implying both, that BBC inflates Russian crimes, while downplaying Israeli crimes.
in this case, in the title they connected the person who was shot, twice to Russians, one using his nationality, other is by using Putin's name, to deliberately steer the focus to Russian crimes, even though it is not yet proven Russians did it, maybe indeed Russians did it, who knows, what if they did not?
On one side BBC is inflating what's not proven yet (again, they didn't say artist who critiqued politicians including Ukrainians), but downplaying what's proven: Israelis sniping kids
Misleading title.