Veronica Khkhlova from Neeka’s Backlog has posted an incredibly detailed post describing why the N.Y. Times article about the Orange Revolution and the secret police was probably a big fake. She posts the recent interview with Mykola Melnychenko as well as many historical accounts of the events surrounding his flee to the U.S.

What I find very interesting in all this is that the New York Times’ C. J. Chivers has been quite consistent if not truly successful in providing both the Russian and the Ukrainian security services with a rather cute human face: one of his Russian stories, co-authored with Steven Lee Myers, had an unfortunate timing and was, in general, way too subtle; his December piece on Yushchenko’s poisoning was somewhat too melodramatic to be taken seriously; but his most recent spy story looked almost perfect – until the controversial Melnychenko showed up…

Very interesting. But I’d still recommend the story be turned into a thrilling daytime soap opera.