Among the regime’s many defenders, the leadership of the Kremlin can count upon a supportive chorus in the West to parlay any criticism of Russia’s democratic bankruptcy – happily pointing to high GDP growth over the past decade, and deriding the opposition’s alleged lack of support.  “Human rights” is just a hypocritical attack of those fearing the great Russian revival, they proudly declare.  Authoritarian cronyism really isn’t such a bad way to go, they argue, perhaps citing some recent attempt toward ideology by Surkov or complaining of NATO encirclement.  Corruption, perhaps, is just a topic best avoided and ignored for them.

But the one thing that can’t really be accounted for by these voices of repressive reason is Russia’s political prisoners.  There’s no good way to argue one’s way out of the death of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, there’s no plausible excuse for the medical blackmail of Yukos lawyer Vasily Alexanyan, and there’s certainly no way for the authorities to hide the small detail of who benefitted from the theft of Russia’s largest oil company in the current second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.

Political prisoners are truly the Achilles’ heel of modern authoritarianism – the one record of conduct that cannot withstand the burden of serious consideration.