Russia's special police—chided last month for using excessive force on anti-Putin protestors—answered critics this week by demonstrating how much more force they can wield. In a public show, policemen lay on broken glass, dropped daggers on their stomachs, and broke planks of wood over each other's backs. Russian-affairs expert Yuri Felshtinsky says the officers' zeal for violence and delight in demonstrating it is a chilling warning to the West that must not be dismissed.
Felshtinsky is the author of Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bringing Back KGB Terror, which he co-wrote with Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-KGB spy who was poisoned in England last November.
To read more about Russian police's public demonstration, click here. To see pictures, click here and then click on the photo of Russia's special police unit under Image Galleries.
