, Columnist
What to Do When Russia's Top Cop Threatens to Behead You
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What if the director of the FBI threatened to decapitate a journalist and the threat became public? The result would be scandal, resignation and possibly criminal proceedings.
Not so in Russia. When Alexander Bastrykin, who runs the FBI's local equivalent, the SKR, made such a threat to an investigative reporter, he got off with an apology. Many journalists, including the recipient of the threat and his editor-in-chief, considered the apology sufficient. Case closed.