Perhaps the thing that most upset Putin about Boris was his work on the Magnitsky Act. In Putin’s mind, this was an unforgivable betrayal. But beyond all of this was the message that Boris’s murder sent to people like Vladimir Kara-Murza and me. A year earlier, in an appearance on CNN, Boris had said, “I’m a well-known guy, and this is safety because if something happens to me, it will be a scandal not only in Moscow, but throughout the world.” I had said nearly identical words about myself many times. And even though his death was scandalous, these words were now meaningless. Boris’s murder
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