TODAY: EU decides to delay talks with Russia; Gorbachev supports Yukos prisoner; More military spending; UK continues fight for extradition. With strenuous resistance from Poland, Sweden, and the Baltic States, the European Union leaders have delayed a decision on whether to restart talks over establishing a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Russia. "The PCA will resume once the analysis, the evaluation that is being done by the Council (of EU ministers) and commission is finished," said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. Amid funeral proceedings for Alexei Cherepanov, the New York Rangers first-round pick who died during a game outside of Moscow Monday, the Duma called for a probe of why medical officials weren't present at the game. Responding to outlandish claims of Russia expertise by Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, her Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, recently quipped, ...

Yesterday we blogged about the death of hockey star Alexei Cherepanov. Today an ESPN columnist makes a call for greater transparency in Russia's top league, the KHL: Many hockey people who have been to Russia in recent years -- whether they're players, GMs, scouts or agents -- describe a certain Wild West element to the country's society, and its hockey business in particular. The KHL, with its deep pockets and sometimes suspect way of doing business, has done little to disabuse observers of that notion. League officials acknowledged that Radulov was under contract to the Predators before he returned to Russia to play in the KHL this season, but they did nothing to stop him. Avangard Omsk offered Stanley Cup-winning coach Bob Hartley a contract to become its bench boss, then turned around and offered the job to former Canadian Olympic assistant Wayne Fleming. Now, with many troubling questions ...

The fervent brand of nationalism that has flourished in Vladimir Putin's Russia has taken on many forms, from Nashi youth rallies to nostalgic trends of consumerism to violence against immigrants. But perhaps the most vibrant arena for these patriotic exercises in national pride and supremacy (almost exclusively defined by comparison to the United States) is within sports nationalism. Many have already commented on Russia's bid, beginning last year, to build a competing elite ice hockey platform known as the Kontinental Hockey League (Континентальная Хоккейная Лига, or KHL), which would eventually overcome the popular National Hockey League in the United States, and lure away all the premiere talent with higher salaries. Look no further than how the state-run media has covered the rise of the KHL to see the enthusiasm of injecting nationalism ...