There are those who physically strike at the heart of democracy, and then there are those who cover such actions with insidious propaganda. And there are just plain cowards. Which is the worse, La Russophobe dares to wonder.

Even though the airwaves are awash with evidence that the KGB poisoned defector Alexander Litvinenko, Independent columnist and neo-Soviet sycophant Mary Dejevsky (pictured left, the only image we could find) seeks to defect blame from the Kremlin's doorstep in a November 20 column. A KGB defector in the process of investgating the killing of Anna Politkovskaya is killed by radioactive poisoning, but Mary urges us not to rush to judgment. Yes, by all means, let's give the Kremlin as much time as possible to kill as many people as it can, and judge them only when there is a great big pile of corpses that stink so badly we just can't stand it any more. The next time you wonder how maniacs like Stalin and Hitler manage to rise to power, just have a gander at one of Mary's inane scribblings. She writes:

The new James Bond film is playing to rapturous audiences across the country and right on cue a real-life tale bursts on to the scene from the sleazier end of the 007 repertoire. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian secret agent granted asylum in this country, is in a London hospital after supping with a fellow spook at a sushi bar in Piccadilly. Scotland Yard is investigating the possibility that he was poisoned, perhaps with thallium, the former Soviet KGB's lethal drug of choice. Here I should lay my cards on the table. I do not like spy stories outside the covers of a John le Carré novel and I never liked covering them as a reporter. I find the cloak and dagger world of espionage, with its necessary lies and subterfuge, unsettling. Any truth rests on constantly shifting sand. The borders of fact and fantasy are forever blurred. And a secret agent is precisely that: secret; a man (or woman) behind a mask, an unknown quantity of unknown loyalty. Spies who have defected I find doubly sinister: once someone has betrayed one set of loyalties, how much easier it must be to betray another.

Here's what she wrote about Putin back in July:

There is a genuine debate to be had here, both about the nature of post-Soviet Russia and the policies we in Britain and Europe should pursue. And it is one we should have had long ago. We did not have it in Boris Yeltsin's time because the West was so heavily invested in his survival. We have not had it since Vladimir Putin succeeded him because, until very recently, the negative view rooted in old-style Soviet preconceptions was so dominant. Opposing voices struggled to be heard. It is a healthy sign that finally something akin to a real discussion is taking place. But it is regrettable that this is happening not because of any heightened curiosity about what is really going on in Russia, but because of our selfish panic about energy supplies.

This might as well be Vladimir Putin talking. And in fact, it actually might be. Because Mary is an ardent participant in the Valdai Discussion Club, which provides her with an all-expense-paid luxury sojourn to hobnob with Putin and his KGB cronies from from time to time, as La Russophobe has previously exposed. In other words, she's been bought off. An honest person, or just one with a vague sense of the appearance of properity, would disclose this fact when talking about judging Putin. Read Mary's articles for yourself. She doesn't.

So let's recap: This man has the courage to defect from Russia and provide secrets to the West. He continues to investigate Russian atrocities, marking himself for assassination. And Mary's response? The fact that he's done this is suspicous (courage is obviously not a word in her vocabulary, although she can say "please pass the fois gras" at Valdai quite emphatically), and cause for us to ignore him. In fact, good riddance to him, she says. And until we actually see Vladimir Putin put a gun up against someone's head and pull the trigger, mum's the word. In fact, given that Forest Gump movie, it's pretty clear we'd have to be awful careful even then. Maybe she thinks we should wait until Putin becomes the Prime Minister of Britain.

Then again, maybe that's her desired outcome.