There was an enormous amount of dissent in Romania, but it was passive, not active. There were far fewer workers and intellectuals who confronted bru… - John Sweeney

[...] the two 'sports health technicians' who visited Salisbury to admire the famous '123-metre spire' were morons sent by morons. [...] Did no one close to Putin have the courage to say to him, 'Listen, Boss, if we use Novichok against Skripal there is a very good chance that the British will work it out'.
Clearly no one had. Perhaps Putin doesn't care. Perhaps showing hat he is willing to take extreme risks to kill people he considers traitors is the point.

The effect of Pacepa's defection on Ceausescu's mental state was to destabilise him even more. He became quite crazy for a time and suffered a further, permanent loss of proportion. What talent there remained in his circle was removed in the whitch-hunt that followed the defection.

For me, Navalny was killed in large part because of the West's appeasement of Putin that, even today, despite all the killings of innocent men, women and children in Ukraine, our leaders are afraid to stand up to the monster in the Kremlin, to properly enforce sanctions, to effectively arm Ukraine, to cut Russia off from the international financing system. The West is doing none of the above and is in danger of not just betraying Ukraine but its own security.