The Putin Regime Is Poisoning Itself
Russia is damaging its long-term reputation with its macabre method of going after opponents.
Putin’s enemy.
Photographer: Vassily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images
Just as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the two men the U.K. accuses of being Russian military intelligence agents sent to poison ex-spy Sergey Skripal in March are “civilians” who have done “nothing special or criminal,” another possible poisoning case landed in his lap. Pyotr Verzilov, an anti-Putin activist and producer of the political punk band Pussy Riot, was hospitalized in Moscow with suspicious symptoms.
Even though poisons, both chemical and biological, have long been used by intelligence services the world over to attack all kinds of enemies -- leaders of hostile states, terrorists, defectors, dissidents — what’s happening now with a multitude of proven and suspected Russian cases means the Putin regime has taken the practice beyond any reasonable limits. It is doing more damage to Russia’s reputation and international standing than any individual regime critics and enemies ever could.