What commentary can one really add to this reprehensible slaying of Kremlin-critic blogger Magomed Yevloyev? The return to the headlines of the crisis in Ingushetia, which the opposition claims involves an open policy of genocide by the Russian state, highlights exactly the types of ethnic internal separatist tensions of the Russian Federation made very problematic by the intervention in Georgia (the primary reason why the term “pandora’s box” has been used so often in describing the invasion). Yesterday a report was published on the writer’s website, Ingushetia.ru (which has a long history of publishing reports critical of government policy in the Caucasus) stating that Yevloyev died Sunday after a police car picked him up from an airport in the Ingushetia province and then dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in the head. Today, more than 1,200 people came out to rally at his funeral, demanding a transparent inquiry into his death. The police are now claiming that the blogger was “accidentally” shot (which seems odd in light of what was done with the body), and lawyers are fighting the official story claiming premeditated murder. The dramatic portrayal of his forceful arrest by Kommersant cast doubt on the “accidental” explanation:

“In a few minutes after the departure of president’s motorcade, another cavalcade of armored cars drove up to the plane – two UAZ cars and four Volgas. Armed to-the-teeth policemen poured out of the cars. Interior Minister Musa Medov was among them. Having seen Magomed Evloev, the policemen went for him to drag into the UAZ,” Khazbiev said. It was the action-thriller then.