Putin's provocations

First, Putin appoints a new prime minister seen as a mere placeholder, bypassing the two favored candidates; an action which completely upsets all the assumptions about succession and raise doubts that Putin will step down as President next year, as the current Russian constitution requires.

The same week, Gen Alexander Rushkin, Putin's deputy chief of staff, announces they have just dropped the 'father of all bombs', twice as deadly as the largest US bomb (the so-called MOAB), which, due to nanotechnology, has a core temperature twice that of the US bomb; Rushkin claims that where it explodes, "All that is alive merely evaporates." But some experts think they faked the videotape of the explosion - why, no one knows.

So we have a leader who likely has ordered political assassinations using radioactive polonium, who has subverted the rule of law and the political process, and even sidelined his main intra-party competitors; and has made many menacing comments and over the past year done many things (highlighted in some previous alarming posts) to make Russia an obvious military threat to its neighbors and the world again. In terms of his dangerousness to US interests, he makes Saddam look like a Boy Scout. But Bush has 'looked into his soul' and discovered we have nothing to worry about...

And we know to just trust Bush's judgment on these things.

Update: At least a few in the media have noticed. But CNN et al. continue to ignore Russia unless polonium poisoning is involved.