"Speak clearly, Sergei," instructed Putin to a nervous Sergei Beseda in that bizarrely socially-distanced, pre-arranged confab on recognizing the "independence" of the two eastern republics.
What is so strange about this...Can we all agree that this is a MAJOR story? Thank you.--is that the arrests were first reported on March 11, 9 fucking days ago, by an apparently well-respected D.C. think-tank, the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and just broke through the think tank to the popular media yesterday, by WSJ. There was an article in NYT on March 16--the article was on morale among Russian soldiers--and buried half-way through was a mention that oh btw Putin had his spy chief arrested. Like what? That doesn't merit its own separate, prominent lede. Now, everybody's got it. Huff Post, J-Post, all them Posts.
Sergei is in gaol for telling Putin what he wanted to hear, that Ukrainians were going to shower Russian troops with flowers. In the event 7k of them were offed by enraged Ukrainian fighters. Been a lot of dead skunks in the the middle of the road.
