Today’s news on the brazenly harsh deadline set in the Khodorovsky case speaks for itself – the prosecutors aren’t even pretending to play by the rules any more. Both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are now both under the gun: they have about 36 days to carefully examine more than 30,000 pages of trumped up charges. The procuracy in this case is evidently indistinguishable from the board of directors at Rosneft, who have determined that it is in the interests of the power to ensure that this process is well under way during the lead up to the presidential selection in March.