And the hits just keep on comin'

Russia is at it again. The political assassinations weren't over with last week's mysterious murder of an outspoken Russian critic near Washington, D.C.

ABC News: Russian Journalist Dies in Suspicious Fall From Window

Respected Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, who reported on military affairs, mysteriously plunged to his death from the 5th floor of his apartment building Friday, making him the 14th journalist to die under questionable circumstances in Putin's Russia, according to statistics compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"They killed Ivan. They killed Ivan," said a distraught former U.S. intelligence staffer familiar with Safronov when he learned the news today. "Another Russian journalist is dead. Ivan fell out of the window with his coat and hat on? Come on," said the former official who frequently visits Moscow and asked to remain anonymous.

Last October, Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in the elevator of her apartment building as she unloaded groceries just days before she was scheduled to publish a story about the use of torture by Chechnyan officials.

Polikovskaya's killing, the 13th since Putin took office, led the Committee to Protect Journalists to declare Russia "the third deadliest country in the world for journalists" after Iraq and Algeria in their recent report, "Deadly News." All of the cases remain unsolved.

If the former U.S.S.R. is trying to send a message, they are succeeding. That message is not that Russia should be feared for its lethal clandestine agents, ready and willing to spring into action and employ any means (Radioactive poison, bullets, acid) to achieve Putin's egomaniacal ends.

Rather, the message is that Russia cannot be trusted, the west has even greater cause to be suspicious, and U.S. moves to create an air defense shield among Eastern European allies should be implemented with greater speed.