In Chechnya In these times was real chaos and war. There were there a lot of actors who didn't obey anyone, so, of course, there were a lot of crimes. It took a lot of effort to establish the control of the authorities over what was happening. It's hard to clearly say that Anna Politkovskaha was on Putin's orders. Alexandr Litvinenko was different case. He was an defector and former officer not a peaceful human rights activist maybe I can believe it. But not all his statements and his writings has clearly proofs. For example Julian Assange faces the death penalty in the US. And some even claims that was attempts on him... Many developed countries of the world have a history of some strange crime cases and human rights violations. It seems in real world all is so complicated you even can't easy say that these crimes were not deliberately constructed by hostile agents. Only in case than you have very very accurate evidence sometimes only if you have personally seen them... I would like to live in a truly free and democratic country, but I doubt that such a country can exist in conditions when there are necessarily hostile and unfriendly among many other countries...
> For example Julian Assange faces the death penalty in the US
I really doubt this would happen.
He would probably face a lesser punishment, and you could argue about it being right or wrong, but this doesn't cancel out Russia's terrible track record.
Maybe. I wouldn't say that Russia's terrible track record relative to other countries. But I agree that there have been some bad events that we should strive to prevent in the future.
