Iain Macwhirter: Russia row is how bombs start to fall

He certainly looks the part. Vladimir Putin is a textbook villain, with his piggy eyes, his puffy face, the result perhaps of steroid use or inexpert plastic surgery. He is a narcissistic authoritarian who in his 18 years in power, has made a sham of Russian democracy, suppressed free speech, condoned homophobia, engaged in military adventurism in Ukraine and allied with deeply unpleasant characters like Syria’s Bashir Assad. Vladimir Putin is quite capable of ordering the liquidation of his opponents, and passed legislation which effectively authorised the killing of Russian traitors abroad. The circumstantial evidence is compelling that he was behind the attempted murder of the former double agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter in a Salisbury shopping centre.http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16094937.Iain_Macwhirter__Russia_row_is_how_bombs_start_to_fall/