“This could easily be overlaid over events in the US, including killings.”
The US does indeed assassinate our enemies. It’s true. But we do not assassinate dissidents, at least not so far. Soviet Russia has long conducted assassinations of dissident refugees as an object lesson to other such refugees to maintain their silence.
Yuri Andropov was probably the most successful organizer of KGB assassination missions on foreign soil. It should be noted that Putin idolized Andropov and when Putin seized power in Soviet Russia he restored Andropov’s memory as someone to be revered.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/putin-puts-yuri-andropov-back-on-his-pedestal-1.1145047
Putin is not nearly the operational master that Andropov was with several failed poisonings under his belt, a couple ham-handed assassination attempts, and several captured assassins ending up in foreign intelligence agency custody.
Andropov’s only quasi-failure of note was a failed attempt on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn circa 1975 that resulted in the arrest of some twelve Soviet agents who were later exchanged for Western spies.
Putin fancies himself as superior to Andropov but that’s just not the case. Andropov had no where near the ego that Putin has and he preferred for people to think of him as calm, rational, and intellectual. Putin is just a rank bully.
Had Andropov been around there would have been no war in Ukraine because Ukraine would have never escaped Moscow’s grasp in the first place.
One Andrew Breitbart.