I suppose it should be "an Old Russian Low," considering this represents more a return to Mr. Putin's KGB days than some new policy he dreamed up. It will be interesting to see if they actually go the "show trial" route, as the author suggests. Show trials were a special beast in the USSR, as they were actually scripted, like a movie. Even the defendant would say exactly what he was told by the time the trial took place (this is known from transcripts of the trials that were sometimes leaked). One can only imagine what kind of "convincing" it took to make a defendant say what (s)he was told to say.