Putin may be mad – but not mad enough to have had Boris Nemtsov killed

Boris Nemtsov signed his own death warrant when gave an interview earlier this month to the Russian newspaper Sobesednik saying that he was afraid he was going to be killed on Vladimir Putin’s orders. Perhaps he thought he was safeguarding himself from the possibility of such an attack by talking about it openly. Perhaps he did even save himself from Putin. But in this proclamation, he made himself a massive target – he made sure that his death would be a major political event inside Russia. So killing him became an objective for any number of people who will wish for the unrest which will now follow. “Boris Nemtsov shot dead: Outspoken Putin critic who had expressed fears for his life is killed near the Kremlin” is exactly the headline his killers were after.

Putin may be bad and a little mad – but is he a psychologically unstable bloodthirsty maniac? He ought be the last person who would have wanted Nemtsov’s death.