TODAY: Russia keeps its voting rights in Council of Europe; Lavrov says Russia wants unbiased discussions about human rights; French Foreign Minister argues Russia flouting ceasefire; Israeli diplomat makes swift exit; UK Foreign Secretary visit to ease tensions?; Scientology 1- Russia nil.At a meeting with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Sergei Lavrov has asserted that the Kremlin has not avoided discussing human rights issues with other European states, 'but that dialogue should not be politicized, it should be concrete'.  According to Bloomberg, Kouchner has said that Russia is not honoring the terms of the 'Sarkozy-Medvedev' ceasefire agreement.   Ex-Georgian parliamentary speaker Nino Burjanadze has blamed President Mikheil Saakashvili for last year's conflict with Russia and has affirmed ...

TODAY: New NATO chief asserts Russia needs to acknowledge sovereignty; nuclear chief fired; Uzbekistan wary of Kremlin's Kyrgyzstan plans.  Moscow-appointed judge in Yukos case to step down. Anniversary of Solzhenitsyn's death. The new head of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has said that the alliance will attempt to pursue a 'strategic partnership' with Russia, whilst 'insisting on Russian compliance with her international obligations including respect of the sovereignty and integrity of her neighbors'.  The Commander of the strategic nuclear missile forces, Nikolai Solovtsov, has been fired after the repeated failures of the Baluva missile.  He will be replaced by General Andrei Shvaichenko.  Russia has renewed its backing for UN sanctions against North Korea, initiated to deter it ...

TODAY: Russia warns against US joining monitoring in Georgia; Lavrov unfazed by Biden's comments. US says Russia could still join NATO.  Ambassador to Britain claims no legal basis for British Council activities in Moscow. Moldova election kicks off.  Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has said that Georgia's movements on the frontier with South Ossetia and Abkhazia are 'categorically inflating political and military hysteria'.  A high-ranking diplomat has said that including the US in monitoring missions in Georgia would be 'extremely harmful' and would raise 'the likelihood of border provocations,' as well as endangering the reset.   Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has downplayed Joe Biden's 'Bush-like' comments as 'not normative', saying that US voters who ...

Somebody from Freedom House wrote an op/ed in the Moscow Times about Russia's moves to water down its responsibilities before the European Court of Human Rights.

Georgy Matyushkin, Russia's representative to the European Court of Human Rights, believes that cases already submitted to the court would be retracted and sent back for review by Russian courts. This includes thousands of cases that deal with counterterrorist operations in the North Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya. The law could also prevent any future cases from reaching the European court.

Simply put, the new law has the potential to cut off the world from knowing about the impunity and lawlessness in the North Caucasus. (...)

According to Memorial, there are up to 5,000 people missing from the second Chechen war alone. So far, the European Court of Human Rights has made rulings on only several dozen of these cases because of a severe backlog.

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TODAY: Biden's comments on 'withering' Russia cause consternation; Clinton steps in to smooth over reset cracks.  Medvedev interview; 'bear' needs to appear more friendly.  Russia threatens sanctions on firms helping Georgia re-arm; acknowledges Black Sea violation.  In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Joe Biden has suggested that pragmatism led Russia to accept better relations with the US, unreservedly citing the country's numerous problems (including its 'withering economy') as reason for the thaw.  Russia has voiced its perplexity at the criticisms, and awaits 'clarification', with a foreign policy adviser asking, 'who is shaping the U.S. foreign policy, the president or respectable members of his team?'  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has adopted a ...

Catherine Belton has just published an article in the Financial Times which features a first-time interview with the former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov revealing "a closed-door conversation he claims he had with Vladimir Putin in which the then president revealed political motives for the state's legal pursuit of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former Yukos tycoon."Excerpt below:

Throwing his backing behind Mr Khodorkovsky's suit in the European Court of Human Rights, Mr Kasyanov said he had laid out in an affidavit filed to the court in Strasbourg last week Mr Putin's explanation in July 2003 for the rising state pressure on Mr Khodorkovsky and his Yukos oil company.

"He told me Khodorkovsky...was financing the Communist party without his agreement," Mr Kasyanov told the FT.

Mr Kasyanov

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TODAY: Medvedev visits South Ossetia in move called 'provocation' by Saakashvili, flouting US comments about unity of Georgia?; British academics bemoan closure of history website; Bolshoi's musical director quitsMedvedev has made a surprise visit to South Ossetia to pledge support for its leadership, a move condemned by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who called the visit 'the most immoral and shameful precedent in centuries'.   Medvedev and South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity visited a Russian military base in Tskhinvali.  The Russian President promised citizens that rebuilding would take place and announced that 'there is a need to support and cooperate in the defense sphere'.  Commentators suggest a rebuke to Obama who asserted the independence of Georgia on ...

Robert Amsterdam has a new by-lined article on the latest developments in the Mikhail Khodorkovsky trial published on the legal news website JURIST.

Rejection of appeal is latest example of due process failures in Khodorkovsky caseRobert Amsterdam [Counsel for Mikhail Khodorkovsky]: "This summer, a second trial is being carried out by the Russian government against Mikhail Khodorkovsky - once Russia's most successful oil executive and opposition financier. As may be expected, the good news continues to come from outside of Russia, where some rule-of-law courts are able to fairly view the evidence. On May 21 the European Court of Human Rights issued a decision to admit a complaint from Khodorkovsky that Russia had violated three articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in their ...

Today a Polish magazine is publishing a version of the attached extended article, will update with link soon.

"Power, Carry out Your Laws!"

By Robert Amsterdam

These words stated by Mikhail Khodorkovsky at the start of a second show trial against him in Moscow this March should echo in the ears not only of the country's leadership, but also of all those who wish to engage constructively with Russia. For a leadership that does not respect its own laws is one that no one can trust - not its own citizens and not its foreign partners.

On the night this second sham prosecution against Khodorkovsky began, a prominent 67-year-old human rights activist was savagely beaten for among other things supporting the release of Russia's most famous political

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Big news today from Strasbourg. The European Court on Human Rights has admitted a complaint submitted by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, meaning that the court will hear arguments from the defense that his arrest, persecution, and trial by the Russian government has violated three Articles of the European Convention on Human Rights.  Most importantly, the court rejected arguments from the Russian prosecutors denying the political motivation of his detention and trial. In addition to the ECHR's past rulings on Platon Lebedev and the Dutch court's Yukos ruling, this news really turns the pressure up on the authorities at a critical moment in the trial.The full press release is available over at the Khodorkovsky Center:The European Court of Human Rights has issued its Admissibility Decision ...