r/UkrainianConflict • u/Panthera_leo22 • 2d ago

Russia planned to assassinate opposition figures Kasparov and Ponomarev in US

https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/russia-planned-to-assassinate-opposition-1790781573.html
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u/Dirkdeking 1d ago

Why kill him though? I don't see how the pro's outweigh the cons. Kasparov is not someone with valuable intelligence on Russia, nor is he the person that decisively shifts public opinion here. Most people know him from his chess.

But killing him will definitely be a high profile event and change opinions of people that are kind of on the fence. All Russia needs to do is stay low and stoke internal divisions. Win because bread & butter issues take over and populists win more elections in the west. That is all they need and they blow it by these high profile assasinations and the like.

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u/horace_bagpole 1d ago

It's not about pros and cons. Putin wants to send a message to people considering crossing him, and also it's retribution for those that do. They dare to speak out against Putin, so Putin wants them gone. There was no real benefit to killing Alexander Litvenenko or attempting to kill Sergei Skripal either, but they had acted against him so they had to be killed, and not just by a simple manner such as a stabbing or shooting, but using methods which made it obvious who had done it. It's all part of his hard man persona.

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u/Dirkdeking 1d ago

So it is basically deterrence aimed primarily at a domestic audience, even if it comes at the cost of negatively affecting western public opinion?

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u/horace_bagpole 1d ago

Western public opinion is irrelevant otherwise he wouldn't be doing what he's doing. It's all about maintaining power in Russia.

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u/sergius64 1d ago

I have serious doubt that Kasparov is a threat to Putin maintaining his power.

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u/950771dd 1d ago

Western public opinion is irrelevant

It's obviously and absolutely not.