Free Republic

SMOLENSK, Russia -- The era of brutal score-settling is far from over in Russia, especially in this hard-bitten western city where the nexus of business and politics usually yields volatile results. Eduard Kachanovsky, a freshman city councilman who rankled city officials and their moneyed business allies with investigations into shady real estate deals and missing cash, recently learned that lesson. The officials had warned him for months to stop digging. Each time, he ignored them. On the morning of Oct. 17, Kachanovsky was walking through his apartment building lobby on the way to work when two men dressed as...