Enter James Bond...

Last November, Alexander Litvinenko died in London from Polonium poisoning, I followed the story closely. It was such an unbelievably brazen crime, with so little attempt at cover-up. Very few people in the world have polonium (a radioactive material) and those who do have access to it are involved with (former) superpower governments. Litvinenko, a disillusioned-KGB-agent-turned-investigative-journalist living in England under political asylum, highly criticized Putin's regime-which in the last few years has become a highly deadly activity. Most recently, Litvinenko had been publicizing the death of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist whose body was found shot three times execution style in the elevator of her building, and who had already survived two other attempts on her life. She had spent much of her journalistic career reporting on atrocities and injustice in the Caucasuses.

According to a journalist I heard on NPR in January, Russian parliament passed a law forbidding Russian citizens from critizing the government, and made killing such citizens legal both within Russia and abroad. Now the UK wants to extradite Andrei Lugovoi--a "former security service agent"--who they say poisoned Litvinenko, but Russia won't force him to leave the Motherland. The subtext is, "What? He committed no crime! It is legal for Russians to assassinate dissidents."

This is what happens when you elect the former head of the KGB to run the country.

Life is not going well in the heart of the former USSR, but civil unrest is unlikely. As civil liberties are gound under the heels of Putin and his cronies, the standard of living is increasing. And, as the press is highly censored, the chance of ordinary citizens learning about what's happening AND getting fired up about it enough to DO something is highly unlikely. They are comfortable, and don't want to be found dead in their elevators.