Don't play dead for Putin

THERE ARE A lot of ways to make a man's death look like an accident, suicide or a street crime. That wasn't the intent of whoever murdered former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London. By using such an exotic murder weapon -- a radioactive isotope known as polonium-210 -- his killers sent a message: Don't mess with the powers that be in Russia.

The identity of his murderers is likely to remain unknown, but in all probability Litvinenko was poisoned because of his campaign against Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and the KGB's successor, the FSB. He is only the latest to pay with his life for offending Russia's ruling clique. The list of prominent people murdered in the last few years includes crusading journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya (whose death Litvinenko was investigating), politicians, executives and government officials. Others, such as Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, have narrowly survived assassination attempts or have been exiled or silenced with threats of violence or legal charges.

Alleged tax evasion has been a favorite tool of intimidation. Wielding such dubious accusations, the Kremlin was able to consign Russia's richest man, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to a Siberian prison camp and to expropriate his giant oil company, Yukos. Whatever the state of his taxes, Khodorkovsky's real sin was to bankroll opposition to Putin.

Having taken power in a nascent democracy six years ago, Putin has been reestablishing authoritarian control. Governors are no longer elected but appointed by the Kremlin. Laws have been changed to make it harder for opposition parties to compete. Independent media outlets and major corporations have been gobbled up by state-controlled companies.

Repression at home has been matched by rogue behavior abroad. Russia has used economic leverage in an attempt to stifle democratic revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, with the goal of keeping those neighboring countries under its thumb. In Chechnya, Moscow has imposed a brutal puppet regime. Russia exports arms to China, Venezuela, Syria and other countries at odds with the U.S. Most alarming have been Russia's sales to Iran of a nuclear reactor and surface-to-air missiles to defend it, even as Moscow blocks serious U.N. sanctions against Tehran.