(NYTimes) After leaving Russia’s regional leaders to take much of the responsibility and heat for battling the coronavirus pandemic, the Kremlin has sent a blunt message to recently empowered local elites: Don’t even think about challenging the will of President Vladimir V. Putin. In an emphatic blow against a regional leader long viewed as disloyal, masked security officers in camouflage uniforms on Thursday arrested the governor of Khabarovsk Krai, a remote territory in the Russian Far East. […]
“The very fact that they could not find anything more fresh to accuse him of is a clear signal that this is an act of political repression,” Nikolai Petrov, a political analyst who studies regional politics, said in a telephone interview “They are telling local elites that if they can arrest a sitting governor for crimes going back 15 or 20 years then they can arrest anyone.” […]
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