Putin’s Russia

Fifteen year old Gary Slok and his mother, Petra Langeveld were traveling to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014 for a special vacation arranged for single mothers and their children. Only a few hours after this photo was taken, their plane, Malaysia Airline Flight MH17, which took off from Amsterdam, was shot down with a Buk surface-to-air missile by a group of Pro-Russian separatists. Buk missiles are self-propelled missiles that can be guided from the ground using a radar system and can travel three times the speed of sound, with the capability to reach a target more that 70,000 feet (21,300 meters) in the air. At the time of impact, the Malaysian Airline’s Boeing 777 was traveling at 33,000 feet (10,000 meters). The plane crashed in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members on board. In the aftermath, the Russian government initially blamed the Ukraine for the attack on the commercial airline; However, it was discovered the missile had come from territory belonging to Russian-backed separatists who had indeed shot down flight MH17. The fate of MH17 ranks as Malaysia Airline’s worst flight incident, and occurred only three months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airline Flight 370, which has yet to be recovered. This final photo of Petra Langeveld and her son, Gary Slok, which was discovered through social media, is a disheartening reminder that death can come even when we least expect it.

Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov, former Deputy Prime Minister under Boris Yeltsin and the leading Russian Opposition politician was shot four times in the back while crossing a bridge on foot near St. Basil’s Cathedral and The Kremlin. The assassination, which took place in the late evening on Friday, February 27 was carried out by an unknown gunman in a car. Nemtsov, who had once served as governor of Russian city Nizhny Novgorod, had begun receiving death threats over social media. The 55 year old and was visiting Moscow to gain support for a march against the war on Ukraine which would have taken place in the Russian capitol on Sunday. In light of Nemtsov’s death, the scheduled March 1st protest evolved into a rally in memory of the fallen politician. Tens of thousands of protestors attended, many carrying the image of Boris Nemtsov and signs sporting the phrase, “I am not afraid”, as chants of “Russia without Putin” broke out within the crowd. While Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has condemned the killing and claimed he has taken “personal control” of the murder investigation, Nemtsov expressed in an interview on February 10th, “I’m afraid Putin will kill me”. Boris Nemtsov had reason to fear for his life due to his activism and openness regarding his strong opposition to war in Ukraine and many of President Putin’s policies. Law enforcement believes the assassination to be, “a provocation aimed at destabilizing the country”, which was already unstable before the Russian Opposition leader was gunned down. Nemtsov has been described as the “bridge between Russia and Ukraine”, perhaps an ironic comparison, eerily foreshadowing his death.