{"id":159190,"date":"2020-09-04T15:50:57","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T13:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/2020\/09\/04\/for-the-russian-state-the-poisoning-of-alexei-navalny-was-simply-business-oliver-bullough\/"},"modified":"2020-09-04T15:50:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T13:50:57","slug":"for-the-russian-state-the-poisoning-of-alexei-navalny-was-simply-business-oliver-bullough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/?p=159190","title":{"rendered":"For the Russian state, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny was simply business | Oliver Bullough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The kleptocracy that controls the country behaves like a ruthless mafia clan &#8211; the world needs to start treating it like one My favourite moment in The Godfather comes when Michael, barely moving his mouth, assures his brother: \u201cIt\u2019s not personal, Sonny, it\u2019s strictly business.\u201d He\u2019s not killing a New York City police captain to avenge his broken jaw, but to advance the Corleone family\u2019s commercial interests.It was a line I remembered when I first heard of the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, the Russian anti-corruption campaigner whose viral videos have done more than anything to expose the luxurious lifestyles of the Kremlin\u2019s elite (here\u2019s one about a vice-premier, a jet and a pedigree corgi). Commentators regularly explain such poisonings \u2013 like that of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018, or that of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, or indeed many others \u2013 by saying that Vladimir Putin is settling old scores, eradicating perceived traitors. Continue reading&#8230;<br \/>\nVia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2020\/sep\/04\/for-the-russian-state-the-poisoning-of-alexei-navalny-was-simply-business\" target=\"_blank\">For the Russian state, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny was simply business | Oliver Bullough<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The kleptocracy that controls the country behaves like a ruthless mafia clan &#8211; the world needs to start treating it like one My favourite moment in The Godfather comes when Michael, barely moving his mouth, assures his brother: \u201cIt\u2019s not personal, Sonny, it\u2019s strictly business.\u201d He\u2019s not killing a New [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theworldwidejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}