Vladimir Putin is a wonderful man who has risen above incredible adversity to successfully lead Russia into the twenty-first century. Now some of you may see the preceding sentence as a futile attempt to placate whoever is killing dissidents of the Russian president. I call it a realization that my mom will kill me if I get radiation poisoning six months before graduation. Bad jokes aside, the recent string of high-profile assassinations is calling the stability of one of the West’s greatest allies into question, and causing more than just scared opinion columnists to taper their slight criticism of the regime so as not to meet an unfortunate end.

While Mr. Putin may not have directly called for these dramatic casualties, that does not make the danger to dissidents any less real. There are plenty of businessmen who would like nothing more than to see the hard-lining Putin fall from power, and, with the upcoming 2008 elections, a weakened Putin will only benefit their interests. Even worse, there’s a chance that the leadership of the Russian intelligence agency could be simply ignoring his orders, in which case the country may have bigger problems, like its very stability. Did I say problems? I meant exciting opportunities to explore political alternatives to democracy — it’s worked so well for Russia in the past.

In spite of these potential options, Mr. Putin’s lenient stance toward the matter is not helping the case for his innocence. Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian intelligence officer who defected to Great Britain, eventually becoming a British citizen, died last week due to complications from radiation poisoning after his food was doused with polonium 210. When asked to comment on the death of the former spy, Mr. Putin simply said, “This was the result of violence, this was not a violent death.” Dying by having “small nuclear explosions,” as Litvinenko’s father put it, throughout your body over the course of up to three weeks doesn’t seem like a violent way to die to me. In fact, if we were to listen to the way that Mr. Putin describes it (which is obviously 100 percent correct), we must assume that what he really went through was a bad case of food poisoning and not a complete decimation of a healthy middle-aged man’s body. Who doesn’t put radioactive material on their sushi?

Unfortunately, the death of Mr. Litvinenko was anything but an isolated incident, a fact not lost on critics of the Russian president. Litvinenko was in the midst of an investigation into the death of Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who was set to publish a series of articles criticizing Russian practices in Chechyna. But I’m sure the four gunshot wounds to the head she sustained stepping out of an elevator didn’t make hers a “violent death” either, and the fact that her computer with the aforementioned articles was confiscated for evidence was just a coincidence. Did I mention how smart I think Vladimir Putin is?

Yet the detractors of the current Russian situation are not limited to single persons. The Litvinenko killing has succeeded in putting Britain square into the midst of a diplomatic crisis. Most likely, an agent of the Russian government came onto British soil and used extreme methods to kill a British citizen while exposing at least a hundred others to varying levels of radiation. Attempts to work with the Russian government have been met with resistance, and the leader of the opposing country is doing little to expedite the process. Yet Russia is an important ally, and doing anything to affect its stability may cause the whole system to fall.

However, this dilemma is not Britain’s alone, as the West needs to address the actions of their crucial ally. There is currently no clear successor for Vladimir Putin, a man who has enjoyed astronomical approval ratings while slowly pulling back on tiny things, like his judicial system and local elections. He has proven to be a much needed friend in the most volatile region in the world, and a strong supporter of the War on Terror. That being said, the increasingly high-profile and vicious nature of the assassinations could be symptomatic of a much deeper problem not only for the Russian President but for Russia as well. A very small amount of polonium 210 could have killed Litvinenko instantly, so the fact that he was allowed to live and suffer for the entire world to see was meant to send a message (which I heard loud and clear, you wonderful president you). Once again, the struggle for Russian power has turned violent, with brazen killings on the soil of Western allies. With all this stability in such close proximity to nuclear technology that may or may not be guarded depending on the day of the week, I feel safer already.

Russia’s position as the forgotten work-in-progress of the world is over, and Vladimir Putin’s reign as the disgruntled poster child of his country’s improvement is quickly drawing to a close. A country that has worked so hard to adjust to an open market of ideas is seeing that concept threatened to its very core. Questions will continue to be raised as the British investigations and upcoming 2008 Russian presidential campaigns progress. Unfortunately, the fear of dramatic and painful retribution may cause those questions to be left unanswered as people are forced to focus more on self-preservation than on the advancement of their government.

Megan Sweeney is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at mps65@cornell.edu. The 700 Level appears alternate Mondays.