And yet I want to ask: but so what? What new have we learned? What did Navalny want to destroy? What was the FSB behind this? That the once formidable organization has turned into a criminal farce? And I am surprised by my colleagues and good friends, who have been writing for the second day already that "a new bottom has been broken" and "the world will never be the same", that this is more than Skripali and Boeing and the Kremlin will not recover from this exposure. Really? I remember the dearest Captain Renault from Casablanca, angrily exclaiming at Rick's restaurant: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! (eng: I'm shocked to find out that there is gambling here!)
The sad fact is that this investigation, no matter how brilliant it may be, will not change anything - neither in Russia, nor even more so in the West. Those who do not trust the authorities will strengthen their disbelief, even if this investigation goes beyond Navalny's traditional audience. For most Russians, this will be a "murky business" and "an attack in an information war" - they are too apathetic, indifferent and conformal and will not react to this in the New Year's hectic, just as they did not react to the poisoning of Alexei or to the self-immolation of Slavina. Our people silently die in thousands from covid, what kind of poisoning is there. For the West, this is an internal affair of Russia - in contrast to Boeing, where 298 foreign citizens were killed, and from the Skripals, where Russia used chemical weapons on the territory of a NATO member. This will not lead to any new sanctions, the Kremlin has long crossed all the red lines and practically received carte blanche for any actions within the borders of the former USSR (except, apparently, the Baltic states), they gave up on Russia, there are enough problems of their own. And the authorities will still habitually talk about "provocation" and "all the way", looking with unblinking fishy eyes.
And the bottom - there is no bottom here, in principle, this is a free fall in the void, and on this way you can still fly many stops: stop Belarus, stop Xinjiang, stop Iran, where the opposition journalist and author of the Telegram channel have just been hanged, stop Argentina, where, thousands of oppositionists were thrown from helicopters into the sea, stopping Haiti with tauntons macoutes is all the path traveled by many countries, and no one intervened anywhere, except perhaps Vietnam in Cambodia, and who would stop Russia, and who would dare to say anything a country with nuclear weapons?
So once again: great respect to colleagues, but the world will remain the same, and the press conference will be held according to the scenario, and Russia will continue its flight into emptiness.
Original is here.