TODAY: Putin eases protest restrictions for Olympics, tests sports facilities, makes promises for this year’s G8 presidency; watchdog calls for release of imprisoned journalists; Khodorkovsky arrives in Switzerland; U.S. to ease up on Magnitsky List; interview with Olga Golodets.

President Vladimir Putin has loosened restrictions on demonstrations during the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics, a move seen largely as an attempted image-boost.  A special zone for protesters will be installed and patrolled by security personnel, who will carefully monitor its numbers.  The International Olympics Committee welcomed the news as evidence of the Kremlin’s ‘plans to ensure free expression during the Games’.  Putin has been testing Sochi’s Olympic facilities – hitting the ski slopes with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and playing a ‘friendly’ ice hockey match with Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko.  Russia holds the presidency of the Group of Eight this year – Putin says the year will be marked by cooperation, transparency, and dialogue, and vowed to battle against protectionist trade barriers (‘even while his country emerged as the world’s leader in protectionism last year’).