“WILL NO ONE RID ME OF THIS TROUBLESOME PRIEST?” The Wall Street Journal reported on April 27th that U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that it is unlikely that Vladimir Putin personally ordered the killing of jailed Russian dissident Alexei Navalny in February. According to the story – while the U.S. and allies still hold Putin accountable for the death, there is no evidence that Putin pulled the figurative trigger. Not everyone is buying the analysis that Putin’s fingerprints are not on the death warrant. Among those who are unconvinced: the Kremlin. According to The Daily Beast, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Russian state TV over the weekend that he didn’t put much stock in the WSJ report. “I would not say that this is high-quality material that deserves any attention. Some very empty reasoning,” Peskov said. Navalny supporters find themselves in the unusual position of agreeing with the Kremlin. One of them, Leonid Volkov, said that those who don’t think Putin was involved “clearly do not understand anything about how modern-day Russia runs” and added that the notion of Putin not being informed and approving of the killing of Navalny in advance “is ridiculous.”
OH, SAY CAN YOU HEAR? We understand that Russian soldiers and their bosses are not too happy about the United States belatedly getting its act together and approving additional aid to Ukraine. Some members of the Ukrainian armed forces were aware of these hard feelings and elected to rub things in on the front lines by blasting a recording of the Star-Spangled Banner in the general vicinity of Putin’s troops. As can be seen from this video posted on social media the Russians blasted back with some gunfire and an RPG round but, as is their wont, they turned out to be ineffective.
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