I was surprised to read so many government voices rallying on the side of Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova in this report from the Press Association.  The article says that lawmakers in the State Duma ‘voted unanimously to demand that prosecutors share details of the inquiry into the murder[s]’, and even quotes a United Russia party member, Sergei Markov, who urged a ‘stop to the wave of attacks on rights defenders’.

The United Russia voice sounds especially jarring here, but all of these voices are complicit in a system within which these awful things happen again and again – the same system which will, presumably, do nothing to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.