In 2006, Anna Politkovskaya came home alone from a neighborhood supermarket in Moscow, carrying a shopping bag.

She was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building. She was 48.

A journalist and mother of a son and a daughter, Politkovskaya had published a series of exposes on the Vladimir Putin regime, for which she received death threats multiple times.

In fact, she once came close to being poisoned to death.

But she remained undaunted, saying she just had to keep writing.

Had it not been for Politkovskaya’s reports divulging the utter brutality of the massacres Russian security authorities committed in Chechnya and how they justified their actions as a war against terrorism, the testimonies from victims of such atrocities might never have been heard.

In her book about the horrors of the second Chechen-Russia war, Politkovskaya notes to the effect that we must know the truth because once everyone knows it, nobody will make excuses anymore.

She must have been precisely the kind of journalist the Kremlin desperately wanted to eliminate.

It has been 18 years since her death.

Several attackers were sentenced to prison for the murder, but the identity of the individual who ordered the shooting remains unknown.

The Kremlin’s crackdown on journalists is intensifying, and those who are deemed “hostile” to the regime keep dying in highly suspicious circumstances.

And in Ukraine, atrocities by Russian troops continue.

News of Vladimir Putin’s fifth win in a presidential election was reported on March 18.

In my mind, I keep ruminating on the message for which Politkovskaya gave her life: “Be brave and always call a spade a spade, including dictators.”

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 19

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.