Russia could find that it is getting more than it bargained for

EVEN by Russia’s recent bloody standards, it was a brazen killing. Magomed Yevloyev, the editor of an opposition website in Russia’s north Caucasus territory of Ingushetia, was detained by the police as he arrived in Nazran on a flight from Moscow on August 31st. Within minutes he was dead, having allegedly tried to seize a policeman’s rifle and been shot in the head. His body was dumped outside the region’s main hospital.

The Ingush authorities say they are investigating an accidental death but nobody takes this seriously. There were reports that Mr Yevloyev quarrelled with the region’s president, Murat Zyazikov, who was on the flight. Ingushetia’s interior minister, Musa Medov, is said to have personally supervised his arrest. Memorial, a Russian human-rights group, called the killing a “demonstrative and cynical crime” and “act of state terror”. ...