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As for a coup and arbitrarly liquidating officers, that is not how Russia operates, that is how left wing governments operate: aka Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China. Sorry to disappoint.

Really, Russia has stopped doing that sort of thing has it? Then please explain the following cases of arbitrary arrests and torture to me:

'The FSB brought espionage charges against academic Valentin Danilov, head of the Thermo-Physics Center at a University in Krasnoyarsk. Following the scientist's arrest on February 16, the FSB charged Danilov with passing to a Chinese company state secrets relating to satellite technology. In an open letter to the procuracy, twenty of Danilov's colleagues maintained the information had been declassified in 1992. One of Mr Danilov's colleagues said "There is really nothing at all secret about the work. Virtually all his research has long been in the public domain." Danilov's trial was expected to start in late 2001.'

The following article is also available at: http://prava.org/similar/danilov.htm

'On February 16, 2001, Valentin Danilov was arrested for allegedly selling top secret satellite information to a Chinese export-import company. Danilov maintains the information he provided had already been published in scientific journals. While detained, Danilov suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized. Despite failing health, the court refused to release him on bail and did not see a reason to alter their "preventative restraint measures." He faces charges of high treason and fraud in a closed trial, which began on October 9. His health continues to decline.

On December 17, the Krasnoya region court ruled that Danilov could receive hospital treatment as recommended by his doctors. It is not known if treatment will occur in a civilian or a prison hospital.

On February 5th, 2002, Danilov was too sick to attend his trial, which was postponed until the next day. Danilov was suffering from a high fever and flu-like symptoms. Although Danilov was absent, on February 6th, the Court decided to allow the trial to be further postponed so that the prosecution had more time to conduct its investigation.'

Note the following quote from: http://www.nyas.org/humanrights/

'In fact, not only was Dr. Danilov representing Krasnoyarsk Technical University when he contracted with the Chinese company but also Russian authorities did not raise objectives during its signing nor for six months after, until his arrest on February 16, 2001. Dr. Danilov’s research was declassified in 1992, at which time the state stopped financing his research. Researchers in the United States and Russia with whom Dr. Danilov has collaborated indicate that the information provided under this contract has been available in open, scientific literature for years.'

Here is another revealing case:

'The trial of Igor Sutyagin, a security and arms control researcher at the U.S.A. and Canada Institute, continued. The FSB arrested Sutyagin in 1999, charging him with passing state secrets to two employees of a British consultancy firm. However, according to his lawyers, Sutyagin never had access to classified materials and had only collated materials available in the public domain.'

I suppose you are aware of the fact that 99.6% of people brought before the Russian courts in 1999 were found guilty and half of the 0.4% found not guilty were convicted on appeal. Out of every 100,000 Russians some 750 are in prison, compared to 120 in Britain.

Also a large proportion of the people who are arrested in Russia are tortured in some way to force them to sign confessions, so even innocent people can be charged with something. Here is another quote:

'According to Human Rights Watch research conducted in 1998 in three of Russia’s regions, torture occurred mostly in the early hours of detention when police isolated suspects from family and attorneys. Police forcibly extracted confessions using beatings, asphyxiation, electroshock, and other forms of physical and psychological violence. Demands for a lawyer were routinely refused and often resulted in more violence.

Torture victims who confessed faced almost insurmountable obstacles in proving that they had done so under duress. The Soviet-era criminal procedure code grants victims access to forensic medical examinations after gaining permission from investigators, who routinely refused such requests. Police and procurator’s offices frequently used forced confessions as the basis for criminal cases, and judges frequently used such confessions as the basis for a conviction.

Police tortured with almost complete impunity. The procuracy routinely reviewed complaints of physical abuse, but such procedures amounted to mere formalities at best. In the few cases where criminal proceedings were instituted against police officers, the procurator’s office gave no priority to the investigation and often tried to sabotage the proceedings, delaying and closing them without good reason. Police sometimes intimidated complaining torture victims as well as procurators and judges dealing with criminal cases against them.'

Finally, here is a case (from http://hrw.org/wr2k2/europe16.html) you probably think is just a western media exaggeration, where an innocent man was arrested and tortured by the Police to make him confess to the rape and murder of a girl:

'The torture of Aleksei Mikheev was a particularly egregious example of Russian police methods. On September 10, 1998, police in Nizhnii Novgorod detained Mikheev on misdemeanor charges but subsequently questioned him regarding the presumed murder and rape of a teenage girl. Mikheev confessed after police reportedly beat and electrocuted him; when police wanted him to confess to five more murders, Mikheev jumped out of the third-floor window of the interrogation room, breaking his spinal cord. Several days later, the girl, whom Mikheev confessed he murdered, turned up in perfect health.'

You can read a full report detailing dozens of even worse incidents of Police torture at this webpage: CONFESSIONS AT ANY COST - Police Torture in Russia

But hell, I'm sure you know best Stavka2, people only get locked up by the Police and the FSB in Russia if they are criminals or evil terrorists. The fact is that in Russia it is not necessary to liquidate someone, when you can just accuse them of espionage and have them die in a labour camp or one of those extremely overcrowded prisons.