Andy Potts
Fascists held in lawyer death
Russian security services have blamed two members of a fascist gang for the murders of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.
The arrest of Nikita Tikhonov, 29, and Yevgenia Khasis, 24, was confirmed on Thursday when the two suspects appeared in court wearing black stockings over their faces - echoing the disguises worn by the killers in the January shooting in central Moscow.
Federal Security Services chief Alexander Bortnikov told President Dmitry Medvedev that the killer had confessed to the crime, one of a string of contract-style killings against journalists and human rights campaigners. Tikhonov's lawyer said on Friday that his client had confessed to the killing, but insisted he was acting alone.
Tikhonov was a suspect in the 2006 murder in Moscow of anti-fascist activist Alexander Ryukhin. Several members of a fascist gang were found guilty of Ryukhin's murder in 2007, but Tikhonov evaded arrest.
Markelov, who represented Ryukhin's family in the case, had identified Tikhonov as a member of the fascist group United Brigade-88, named after the initials in the Nazi salute "Heil Hitler", according to the Sova human rights group.
Cleaning house
As part of the government's anti-corruption drive an exhibition of caricatures inspired by bent politicians, judges and cops has gone on display in the corridors of power.
Twenty artists from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk were commissioned to produce the cartoons, which now hang in the State Duma building.
At the same time, Metro reports, MPs are being urged to sign a "wailing wall", pledging that they are free from corruption. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhironovsky was the first to make his mark, adding: "Sign here, those who have clean hands and shaking knees."
Artist Mikhail Serebryanikov admitted that the show would not solve the problem. "But there is the hope that [corrupt officials] will see our exhibition and it will put them on the road to reform," he said.
Poles angry, Russians baffled
Reports in a Polish magazine, Wprost, that Russian troops staged war games in September which simulated a nuclear attack on Poland and cast the nation as a potential aggressor have stoked another spat between Warsaw and Moscow.
But it was reported calls from Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski to deploy NATO forces in Central Europe which really upset the Kremlin.
With the long-running missile shield row only recently resolved, it was hoped that relations would calm down, but reports that Sikorski urged Washington to provide "strategic reassurance" for Poland bemused Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, Reuters reported.
"I would like to be sure that he actually said that, and if he did I would be deeply astonished," Lavrov told reporters. "I'm astounded because he and I discussed in tiny detail the problems that should be resolved in the context of European security."
Communist marchers frozen out
As Europe commemorated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communism, the old guard was frozen out in Moscow.
Communists gathered for a Nov. 7 rally to mark the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution - and Moscow communist leader Vladimir Ulas expected a crowd of more than 30,000 to march from Pushkinskaya Ploshchad to Teatralnaya Ploshchad. However, the Communist Party later blamed bad weather for a turnout officially given as just 500.
Those hardy souls who braved the chill waved placards saying "Socialism is the way out of the crisis" and "Lies about Lenin and Stalin - to the dustbin of history!"
Meanwhile, around the corner in Red Square, there was an official re-enactment of the famous parade of Nov. 7, 1941, which rallied troops' morale as the Germans advanced on Moscow. Two T-34 tanks took pride of place in this year's show. n
Good week for...
Mel Gibson's wedding?
No sooner had Oxana Grigorieva, 39, given actor Mel Gibson, 53, his eighth child than she was suggesting it was time for her to become his third wife. The Russian singer gave an interview to Glamour magazine saying how she would be happy to marry him - just weeks after denying any thoughts of tying the knot in a TV interview in Britain. Gibson and Grigorieva's daughter is to be called Lucia.
Bad week for ...
Letters to Santa
Ded Moroz, Russia's Santa Claus, is in danger of going out of fashion. At his annual news conference he told journalists that fewer letters are being sent to his Veliky Ustyug home every year. Last year he got only half as many letters as in 2004, Metro reported. "Do not lose faith in miracles," he told journalists, promising that neither swine flu nor the crisis would affect his work.
