Take a second to digest the words of Russian journalist Konstantin Syomin ruminating on the recent events in Serbia on Russian state-run television (as reported by Belgrade’s B92 and translated by me):

It was these very cheering masses, drunk on liberal promises, who mourned the Western marionette (former Serbian PM) Zoran Đinđić’s passing to the next world—a man who destroyed the legendary Serbian army and security services, a man who handed over to the Hague the heroes of Serbian resistance in exchange for abstract economic help, and who for his efforts received a well-deserved bullet.

That’s right: state-run Russian TV celebrates the assassination of a former Serbian Prime Minister, the only real reformer Serbia has had since the tyrranical Milošević. Remember, this is hardly the aberrant opinion of a lone journalist—it’s not like Russian state TV allows things to air that haven’t been carefully vetted.

B92 reports that the Serbian embassy in Moscow has asked for an official apology from Putin over this statement. Hopefully President Tadić will take this opportunity to distance his country from the toxic influence of Moscow, thereby provoking some serious soul-searching among his compatriots as to where they’d like to see themselves in the next ten years.