More Litvinenko

Anne Applebaum has a must read column on the Russian poisonings, the current state of the KGB and various details about former KGB agents. She provides this description of the mystery of Russia:

In other words: Though we don't know who killed Litvinenko, we have learned that London is a more exciting place than we thought it was. We have learned that the complex plots of Dostoevsky novels merely reflect Russian reality. And we have learned that the old KGB lives on in new guises.

The country that spans 11 time zones, brought us Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin, Stalin and Putin remains a mystery for those of us who are non-Russians.