[dimitar]

In America you have Watergate, Iran-Contra, The Lewinski scandal, etc. and the culture and institutions that limit the power of the executive branch to crush the sources of information. Has anything bad happened to the people who uncovered those scandals? No. Is this something worth reporting? Yes.

In Russia when you have something like this you get poisoned by polonium. And I don't think "provincial lords" have polonium handy all the time. Also, governors in Russia are Kremlin-controlled and appointed. In fact - they are the ones that insure great results for the sitting president (Putin once got over 100% in one of the autonomous republics), an unfortunate tradition started by Yelcin. Russian federalism doesn't exist, it was killed in its infancy in the early 90s and crushed

P.S. I also speak Russian (not native, thought) and I'm an official Russian-media geek, as is everyone in my family. This doesn't help my arguments, but you wanted Russian-speakers so here I am.

[asdflkj]

Something like what? Litvinenko was as absolute nobody, without access to any privileged information, and without any original ideas. He is only famous for dying in a bizare way. Putin clearly didn't do it. He may be ruthless, or even a psychopath, but he's not stupid. He gained nothing from that incident, and his enemies gained a lot. Now, who likely did it--people who gained from it, and could only stand to gain from it, or people who lost from it, and could only stand to lose from it?