The thing about the mafia — and the Russian government today is more mafia than anything — is that you can’t continue to make empty threats. Even if everyone in

The thing about the mafia — and the Russian government today is more mafia than anything — is that you can’t continue to make empty threats. Even if everyone in your protection racket is paying up, and no one is squealing or making waves, you still need to remind people _why_ they keep paying you. So it’s absolutely in Putin’s interests to keep assassinating his adversaries, and not to disclaim credit even if the deaths are not ordered by him. Random deaths reinforce Putin’s power just fine — it’s worse if you don’t know, if the threat of extrajudicial killing is random rather than predictable.