Dear friends,

I want to remind you all that WE DO NOT HAVE ALL THE FACTS!! (sorry for the “screaming” CAPS).  I will be the first to admit to this about myself.  Colonel Cassad is doing some stellar reporting about this on his blog, and he also is very very cautious (I don’t share Cassad’s political views, but I have learned to admire his intellectual honesty and his excellent reporting).

I would even dare say that this type of “slow moving caution” is what separates the responsible blogger from the incendiary reckless type who immediately points fingers, knows it all, knows who done it, on whose orders and why.  Personally, I stay away from this kind of “faith based blogging”.

Batman was a skilled and charismatic leader, that is sure.  Which proves nothing.  He had some, shall we say, “interesting” followers.  That also proves nothing.  In fact, nothing of what we know so far proves anything.  But I will say that things look awfully bad for Plotnitskii and the LNR authorities because even if they did not do it, they look guilty and they mismanaged it all.  But to those who might suspect me of blaming the authorities let me share a small exculpatory item of information: it took them a very long time to come up with a (poorly prepared) statement about what happened.  If they had planned the hit, I would have thought they would have also planned a nice, “pre-packaged” cover for it while instead they all have that “deer in the headlights” look.  Again, that proves nothing either, just that one should be willing to look to *ALL* the facts before jumping to any conclusion.

The idea of Putin sending some Spetsnaz team to do that is also highly unlikely.  First, Putin does not need that kind of turmoil in the LNR.  Second, when Putin (or other powerful Russians) wanted to remove Strelkov and Bezler, they did not need that kind of “fireworks”.  Finally, according to the information of a Batman aide, the tactics used in the attack were not the kind used by a professional team (the attackers almost shot each other).  There is a long record of Spetsnaz assassinations of Chechen Wahabi leaders, and none of them looked anything like what happened near Krasnyi Luch.

So, friends, let’s wait.  The key thing for me is this: what will the LNR authorities do?  If they are really not guilty, then they need to launch a massive investigation into what happened and considering the size and nature of the attack, this investigation should yield some clarity.  The Russian special services can help with their own intelligence.  Now if they try hard to forget it all and bury it, then that would look very bad to me.  At that point I expect the Russians themselves to get rid of those responsible.  Unless, of course, the Russians are really behind it all, at which point the cover-up will be total from the local cop to the Kremlin.  But now, let’s wait and see what happens.

And stay away from those “faith-based bloggers” who already know it all before nothing anything.

Kind regards,

The Saker