From NRO:
"Exporting a Tradition
Vladimir Putin appears to be only the latest in the long line of Russian tsars who have upheld the tradition of assassinating anyone who stood in their way. The practice goes back at least as far as the XIVth century’s Ivan the Terrible, who killed thousands of boyars and other people, including Metropolitan Philip and Prince Alexander Gorbatyl-Shuisky for having refused to swear an oath of allegiance to his eldest son, an infant at the time. Peter the Great unleashed his political police against everybody who spoke out against him, from his own wife, to drunks who told jokes about his rule; he even had the political police lure his own son and heir, the tsarevich Aleksey, back to Russia from abroad and torture him to death. "
Yes, and you can find that practice in England and other countries, but to say it is a tradition does not follow. It's called evil.