Two senior Russian generals have died within eight days, reportedly after developing heart problems.

Maj. Gen. Aleksander V. Shushukin, deputy head of the paratroopers general staff, who allegedly commanded the annexation of Crimea, died Dec. 27 at age 52. Col. Gen. Igor D. Sergun, the director of Russia’s military intelligence, died Jan. 4 at age 58. He oversaw covert military operations, which included Russia’s undeclared war in Eastern Ukraine.

Russians are used to suspicious deaths of journalists and politicians opposed to the Putin regime, but not to the untimely demise of top military commanders, which last occurred under Joseph Stalin during the purges of the 1930s.

Conveniently for the Kremlin, the deaths occurred as Russia was getting ready to celebrate and then celebrated New Year’s Day, the nation’s most popular holiday, with festivities officially lasting from Dec. 30 through Jan. 8. Most Russians, though, start celebrating a few days earlier and end a few days later. So typically the celebrations last through Jan. 14 — the so-called Old New Year, also known as Orthodox New Year, the first day of the Julian year — and then some, as Russians are typically not known for their temperance.

Nevertheless, the deaths caused quite a stir on the Internet, the only relatively free venue where people in Russia can still discuss the news in the absence of free media, with Russia’s two relatively independent news outlets — the Noavaya Gazeta newspaper and the Echo Moskvy radio — shut down for the holidays.

The are two prevalent interpretations of the deaths.

The first theory holds it that the generals were killed in a Kremlin conspiracy to give President Vladimir Putin deniability of direct involvement in the annexation of Crimea and the war in east Ukraine. That goes especially for the downing of a passenger airliner. Mr. Putin may need that deniability should he need to improve relations with the West to prevent the Russian economy from collapsing under a combined effect of plummeting oil prices and the economic sanctions.

According to the second theory, the deaths are the fallout of a power struggle at the highest level of Russian security forces, namely between the FSB, the KGB’s main successor, and the GRU, the military intelligence, which General Sergun has reportedly restored to its Soviet-era prominence after years of neglect by the Kremlin.

Either scenario could be true.

A possibility that both generals fell prey to excess while celebrating appears less likely, most bloggers and commenters agree. Even less so the chance that the two relatively young generals indeed had some unknown heart problems that just happened to come to the head almost simultaneously. And it happened to be just about the time Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution to establish a criminal court to finally find out who was responsible for downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in July, 2014 over the Eastern Ukranian territory occupied by Russia-supported rebels.

What’s important is that Russia’s Kremlin-controlled media never reacted to the Internet-based quest for truth launched by the country’s more courageous and inquisitive citizens. So if the Kremlin has not yet started to eliminate uncomfortable witnesses among the country’s top brass, it can start to do it any time and without any recourse, just as it did under Joseph Stalin some 70 years ago.

It helps to remember that Mr. Putin is big on deniability.

Mr. Putin has denied that Russia has occupied Crimea, fought a covert war eastern Ukraine, and launched airstrikes that are killing civilians in Syria as they target rebel groups rather than the Islamic State terror group.

His record of denying the obvious goes further back. Consider the following excerpt from his interview with The Bild, Germany’s largest daily, last week:

“Bild: When the Chancellor [Angela Merkel] visited you here in Sochi in 2007, you brought your dog Koni to the meeting. Did you know that the Chancellor is a bit frightened of dogs, so that this would be quite unpleasant for her?”

Putin: “No, I did not know that. I wanted to make her happy. When I learned that she does not like dogs, I apologized, of course.”

Of course. Intimidation has nothing to do with either the dog incident or with Mr. Putin mentioning in the same interview that for him, “it’s not borders that matter.”

According to the Foreign Policy Magazine, Mr. Putin had previously, in January 2006, given Chancellor Angela Merkel a gift of a small toy dog. Because it was known that Chancellor Merkel does not like dogs since being bitten by one when she was young, German diplomats were unsure how to interpret the gift, according to the publication.

Were the deaths of the two generals supposed to make Ukraine happy? Will he apologize once he “learns” it didn’t work?

The moral of the story is that Mr. Putin and his regime respect one thing and one thing only — force. So the West would do well to come up with a resolute and unified stand to counter Mr. Putin’s free-for-all, both in Russia and beyond.

Mike Sigov, a former Russian journalist in Moscow, is a U.S. citizen and a staff writer for The Blade. Contact him at: sigov@theblade.com, 419-724-6089, or on Twitter @mikesigovblade.

First Published January 17, 2016, 5:00 a.m.