The Little Cracks in Russian Society will swell to Become a Greater Threat To Russia than Defeat in Ukraine

 From bne Intellinews...

Appalling from Russian society's point of view, is how far Putin is prepared to go to corrode Russian society in order to pursue grandiose imperialistic dreams.  That corrosion is apparent in countless small events in Russia that are becoming increasingly frequent.

As bne Intellinews writes briefly below, "one of those very unpleasant and frankly scary Russian stories" is Putin's pardon of Politkovskaya’s killer.

These little events will accumulate and eventually cause the collapse of Russian society.  Russia's defeat in Ukraine will be nothing compared to its self-inflicted defeat within Russia itself.

Putin pardons Politkovskaya’s killer This is one of those very unpleasant and frankly scary Russian stories. Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned a Chechen, who was jailed for participation in the murder of famous human rights journalist Anna Politkovskaya. She was gunned down in 2006 in front of her front door on Putin’s birthday in probably the most high-profile slaying of an opposition journalist. She worked for Novaya Gazeta, a leading liberal newspaper that has seen several of its staff killed. She was also a vocal critic of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and accused him of human rights abuses of which he is almost certainly guilty. And she died as a result. Indeed, there are a string of corpses in Kadyrov’s wake. Kadyrov has also been linked to the death of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in 2015 and also a Chechen who was gunned down in a park here in Berlin in 2021. Many of the high profile murders in Russia seem to be connected to the Chechen strongman. It is clear that Putin doesn’t have full control of him as he keeps shooting people he doesn’t like with impunity. For example, recently his son was filmed beating a man that disrespected Islam – and nothing happened to him. This is the problem of adopting the “power vertical” as your political model, rather than broad-based democracy: you become hostage to some of your underlings. Putin can’t do anything about Kadyrov as he is holding the lid on a third insurrection in Chechnya, making Putin powerless as there is no way he will send troops there for a third time. And if Kadyrov goes there is a good chance it will rise up again. There were rumours that Kadyrov had died last month (and he does look unwell, he has gained a lot of weight recently), but he survived whatever was wrong with him. There are also reports that his son was sent to Moscow and had a long interview with Putin. It’s widely assumed that Kadyrov is getting ready to retire and intends his son to take over.