Monsters and Critics (among many others) reports that Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov attempted to kill a front page story in the Russian version of Forbes magazine which was unfavorable to his wife, coincidentally (or perhaps not) one of the world's 400 richest people. After an explosion of international pressure and the resignation of its editor, the magazine backed down and ran the story. When last we heard from Forbes, its Russia editor had been rubbed out in an episode that, it now seems, eerily prestaged the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, and the accused killers had been set free.

Here we see Russia in microcosm. We see the vast, godawful disparity of wealth between a small fundamentally corrupt oligarchy tied to those in government and the vast unwashed population, the signal hallmark of Russia in the Nineteenth Century. We see the horrifying indicia of totalitarianism, the signal hallmark of Russia in the Twentieth Century. And we see the fundamental weakness of Russia when confronted by concerted, consistent, determined resistance; the country is simply to weak to stand and fight.