by Jonathan R. at 10:02 AM

Vladimir Putin's enforcers would make any mafia hit man proud. The media reports on these things as discrete events, but rarely strings together the alarming pattern of untimely deaths that befall Kremlin critics. After the shooting of a Putin critic over the weekend in Maryland, a Russian reporter "committed suicide" in Moscow yesterday.

A military correspondent for Russia's top business daily has died after falling out of a window, and some media alleged Monday that he might have been killed for his critical reporting.

Ivan Safronov, the military affairs writer for Kommersant, died Friday after falling from a fifth-story window in the stairwell of his apartment building in Moscow, officials said. His body was found by neighbors shortly after the fall.

Tsar Vladimir will be remembered as the autocrat who reversed Russia's drift away from dictatorship. Let's hope the damage he has done is not irreversible.

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