There’s a good blog post by Michael Idov over at the Daily Beast discussing the most recent case of the FSB putting together a variety of hidden camera clips in order to frame up their opponents in depraved situations – this time portraying activist Ilya Yashin, political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin, and the editor in chief of the Russian edition of Newsweek, Mikhail Fishman hanging out with some prostitutes and cocaine.

These tapes, which are quite obviously contrived entrapments using clumsy editing and disappointingly unprofessional tactics, could mean one of two things, writes Idov:  “One is that the system is wobblier than thought, President Medvedev’s liberalization promises are about to bear fruit, and Russia’s internal security service, the FSB, sensing uncertainty for the first time in years, is wasting no chance to tar every possible breakout star of the opposition. (…)  The other possibility is that the smear campaign is the handiwork of an off-the-script underling.“