According to a Levada Center poll published on December 15th, three weeks after he perished, here's what the Russian people think about the Litvinenko killing:

The upshot? An overwhelming majority of Russians (over 80%) either know little/nothing about the killing or think Litvinenko himself was to blame for it. Less than a fifth of Russians think forces outside Litvinenko's circle killed him, and half of those believe it was Western forces who were responsible. Less than one in ten Russians polled believed that the Kremlin itself was responsible for killing one of its most vocal critics.

Some people would go soft on the Russians at this point, and argue that they can't be expected to have a clue when virtually all of their media is controlled by the Kremlin. Under those circumstances, perhaps it's even impressive than as many as one in ten can recognize the possiblity that the Kremlin might have killed a Kremlin enemy.

But not La Russophobe. How did the Kremlin get control of the Russian media establishment? Because the Russian people sat idly by and allowed it to happen. Again.

The consequences of this are extremely dire: The Kremlin will believe it can pull the wool over they eyes of the people of Russia, and it will go on trying. It's policies will undermine Russia's foundation, and ultimately the ediface will collapse. What we are seeing now is exactly the sort of widespread public ignorance and apathy that allowed the USSR to pursue crazed policies that ultimately destroyed it. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on ME!.

Shame on the people of Russia. SHAME ON YOU!

P.S.: It's worth noting that the author of one crazed Russophile blog cited the foregoing poll as a supposed refutation of the Empire of Lies story by ABC News that LR published on January 12. This maniac, whose blog is not even worth linking to or mentioning by name, quoted the ABC story stating "while the world buzzes with disbelief and fascination over the poisoning and death of a Russian ex-spy, the story has captured scant attention in Russia" and then cited the poll, claiming it proved the author was a "liar." In other words, he claimed the poll showed Russians were deeply interested in and informed about the crisis. Can you imagine that? One is hard-pressed to decide whether this idiot didn't even read his own link, or whether he read it and couldn't understand what it said, or whether he knew perfectly well it didn't support his claim and simply lied, hoping nobody would check. It actually proves, conclusively, that ABC was bang on the money. It shows that two out of five Russians have never even heard of Litvinenko, and that two of the remaining three have swallowed the Kremlin's propaganda that he was responsible for his own demise. The publisher also claimed that there had been "hundreds" of stories about Litvinenko published in the Russian media, including state-owned newspapers. And guess what? He didn't post a link to one single such story. What probably happened is that he read in a state-owned paper that there were such stories, and believed it.

LR had a similar experience with a crazed Russophile a few months ago; she wrote that Russia hates families, and a Russophile reader gave her a link to divorce statistics which she said showed high rates of divorce in countries outside Russia, proving they too hated families (as if this somehow made Russia OK). But Russia was #2 on the list of highest divorce rates, behind only Belarus!

This is the sad state of affairs in Russia today. With "friends" like these, Russia needs no enemies. Russian people are becoming utterly blinded by domestic propaganda, as out of touch with the world as they ever were in Soviet times, and it's all being accomplished without even the need of resorting to Stalin's terror tactics. The window of dissent and opposition is wide open now, there have been only a few token killings, but nobody is crawling through it. Russians are allowing themselves to be led right back into the Soviet meatgrinder only a decade after they dismantled it and extracted the bones of millions.