Possibly the subject of more hate mail and invective than even Putin himself on his best days, a fevered, not to mention demented, race is on to discover the true identity of La Russophobe.

In this extract from her first public interview, La Russophobe explains why she is so forthright in her criticism of those who would defend the Kremlin :

"...one of the things I might have mentioned as a goal of the blog is to make it very clear to the Russia-watching world, especially the academic and establishment types, that there now is a stiff price to pay for issuing pro-Kremlin propaganda and for playing fast and loose with facts while doing so.

It's true I'm faulted for being so acerbic, but what the critics don't mention is that the accuracy of my reporting is almost never faulted or even questioned because it's quite solid. This leaves the Kremlin's apologists no choice but to try to focus on my style, and I take that as a huge compliment.

And what they also don't recognize is that there is a method to my madness. The harshness of my rhetoric means that these folks (for instance, the ones who said that given a fair chance, Russians would build democracy) know they'd better be careful about what they say or else a certain kind of web page is going to appear and follow them for the rest of their careers.

I scare the bejesus out of those folks, and I think it's a useful service. They're watching their Ps and Qs now, in a way they've never done before."

Visit Siberian Light to read the rest of La Russophobe's interview.