Fear permeates Putin's Russia

Read the dispatches from Moscow, and one thing dominates: Fear.
Political opponents of Vladimir Putin are afraid. Ordinary Muscovites with no interest in politics are afraid. And, deep in the night when he’s all alone, Putin himself must be fearful.
But the climate of fear is of his own creation.
Over the past decade or so, Putin’s propaganda machine has created what has to be described as a parallel universe, a world where Russia is beset by many enemies who would deny her former greatness, a world where warfare in Ukraine is solely the fault of Western fascists and no Russian troops are present, a world where political hatred is a tool for public control.
Those who closely watch events in that part of the world spent much of the weekend on the Internet.
And if you had been among them, one single posting would have stopped you in your tracks.
It was a post of RFERL.org, the website of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, and its headline was “Russia’s Milestones Are Gravestones.”
In it, the staff simply listed the most prominent of the killings of political opposition leaders and independent journalists in the Putin era.
Keep in mind that Putin has only had his hands on the levers of power since about 1999.
In October 2002, a regional governor who was trying to crack down on crime and corruption was shot by a sniper.
In April 2003, an anti-Kremlin political leader was shot dead in front of his apartment.
In July 2003, a lawmaker and investigative journalist died of an apparent poisoning.
In June 2004, an expert on Russian racism and xenophobia was shot to death in his apartment.
In July 2004, an American editor of a Russian business magazine who had written extensively about corruption was gunned down outside his office.
In October 2006, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who had written extensively about human rights abuses, was murdered outside her apartment on Putin’s birthday.
In November 2006, a former Soviet security officer who had become a critic of the regime died in London after apparent poisoning by radioactive materials.
In January 2009, a human rights lawyer and a young journalist who was in the process of interviewing him were shot dead in broad daylight in Moscow.
In November 2009, a whistle-blowing lawyer who had implicated the Kremlin in a $230 million tax scam died in custody of the authorities.
In April 2013, a reporter who focused on corruption died of injuries he sustained in a beating that had taken place five years earlier.
It’s a dreadful and troubling list, and it’s a reminder that this is not a regime that can be dealt with as if it were a civilized, respectable member of the community of nations.
It is unpredictable. It is contradictory; despite the string of crimes, Putin has the backing of 86 percent of the public, thanks to a well-functioning propaganda machine.
And having unleashed the twin evils of fear and hatred, its biggest problems now come from within. —J.R.