Putin's Political Prisoners

By Bret Stephens, The Wall Street Journal, 19 February 2008

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Even more strained was the case against Igor Sutyagin, a researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' prestigious Institute for the Study of the United States and Canada, who was accused of illicitly disclosing details about Russia's nuclear posture. His "spying," too, amounted to a paper he had written based on open-source information (including speeches by Russia's own defense minister). Yet that didn't prevent a court from handing down a 15-year sentence.

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