confused about past perfect.

Question

Talking about Past Perfect, could you explain me why the author from the Economist magazine uses this tense in the following sentence " Arsen Pavlov, better known as Motorola, was a Russian irregular who boasted of killing Ukrainian prisoners-of-war and HAD started to act independently of Moscow."   Logically, he always was a russian irregular, so he couldnt  boast earlier about killings than he was an irregular. Maybe Past Perfect is used to emphasise the action that would have far-reaching conseqeunces ( Arsen Pavlolv is said to have been killled by Russian spooks for non toeing the Russian line). http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21709066-while-foreign-powers-argue-about-its-future-ukrainians-struggle-take-their-destiny

AlpheccaStars · Accepted Answer

Anonymousto emphasise the action that would have far-reaching conseqeunces

Yes. When he started acting independently, it was his death sentence. It was OK to be an irregular. It was OK to boast of killing prisoners, but it was not OK to defy Putin.

Anonymous · Answer

."In an end-run around Venediktov, the station’s main shareholder, Gazprom-Media, had fired the reporter and locked down Echo’s offices". Could we say... fired the reporter and locked the offices? So is this an emphasis too? or is it the same meaning as HAD fired the reporter and Had locked the offices, thanks

CalifJim · Answer

Anonymouscould you explain me why the author from the Economist magazine uses this tense in the following sentence [Omit 'me'.]

The temporal point of view, i.e., "the time frame", is established by the parts in blue. The parts in red took place before that established time frame.
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In the first example below, Pavlov started to act independently of Moscow before people attended his funeral and before leaders met in Berlin. As for the second example, many people held expectations about how well the country would hold together before the period of time during which it has held together.
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On the morning of October 19th thousands of people in Donetsk, the main city occupied by the Russian-backed separatists of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, attended the funeral of a notorious warlord assassinated two days earlier. Arsen Pavlov, better known as Motorola, was a Russian irregular who boasted of killing Ukrainian prisoners-of-war and had started to act independently of Moscow. He was the latest of a half-dozen unruly separatist commanders to be eliminated in recent months, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a Ukraine expert at the University of Bremen. That evening, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany met in Berlin to discuss the region’s stalled peace process, known as Minsk-2.
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Two years after the Maidan revolution, Ukraine is stuck in a grey zone of half-reforms and half-war. While the country has held together better than many had expected, it has not transformed itself into a modern nation-state.
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CJ

confused about past perfect.

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