TODAY: Browder on Magnitsky; Luzkhov wins his Nemtsov libel suit; blogging fury prompts cancellation of dacha tender; HIV rates on the up; discrimination follows apace.  OSCE to discuss Medvedev security proposals; analysts wonder whether draft pact is more substance or gesture? Russia-US on track to complete new START draft before Dec 5; Nabokov's last novel; art works seek rich owners An interview with Hermitage founder Bill Browder in the Telegraph sheds light on some of the disturbing details about the incarceration of recently deceased company lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.  Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov has apparently never lost a libel suit in the capital, and the one he launched against opposition politician Boris Nemtsov is no exception; the man who called the mayor a ...

There's an interesting piece on the Sochi election over at the Power Vertical blog.

Leaving aside for a moment what the election means for Solidarity, there are conclusions to be drawn from the Kremlin's point of view. First, the victory-producing machine is in perfect working order, with local officials, police, Kremlin-friendly activists and thugs, the courts, the media, the local election commission, and the Central Election Commission all working like gears in a well-engineered machine in a way that is as impressive as it is frightening.

 

That machine took a faceless bureaucrat who refused to campaign and produced a figure of 77 percent support that will no doubt withstand scrutiny all the way up through the Russian Supreme Court (what happens in Strasbourg is less certain, although it's a safe bet only our children or grandchildren will be around to find out).

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